


Alias

by SlimReaper



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers Generation One
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, For Science!, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, No leg-humping robots, Optimus is a BAMF, Original Transformer, Other, Remember Powerglide? This ain't that, bayverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 45
Words: 127,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2065158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlimReaper/pseuds/SlimReaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS FIC IS DISCONTINUED* Cade and Bumblebee find an injured woman on their way back to base, one who had an unlikely relationship with Optimus Prime. And Prime will do a great deal to avenge what happened to her... I have done bad things to the timeline, resurrected bots whenever I wanted, and pretended that Sam never existed, and I'm not sorry for any of it! <a href="http://sheledriia.deviantart.com/art/Alias-Fanart-553290531">NOW WITH FANART OF ALIAS BY THE WONDERFUL SHELEDRIIA!!!</a></p><p>PLEASE NOTE--this is allllllllllllllllllllll different from my Dratchet stuff. Different universe, older story, no smut. I love this story but it's not like anything else on here from me, so just know that going in, okay? :)</p><p>also check it out, now there's <a href="http://iopele.tumblr.com/post/134100212687/sheledriia-so-a-little-while-ago-i-got-dragged">a side-view of Alias</a> too! THANK YOU SHELEDRIIA!!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Take me to your leader

Cade Yeager had been thinking of his daughter, safely moved into her dorm for her sophomore year of college, rather than paying attention to where the car took him. It wasn't like Bumblebee needed any help from him to drive back to base anyway. Moving her into a dorm this year wasn't what he'd wanted, but since she'd wanted an apartment of her own, it was a compromise. Nineteen was too young for that, in his opinion, and at least the dorms had chaperones. He hoped Tessa would concentrate on her studies and that Lucky Charms wouldn't distract her too much–

–and then he looked out the window and saw that they were in a part of Houston he'd never visited before. A really, really shitty part, in fact, and since when had this place been on the way back to base?

"Hey Bee, take a wrong turn somewhere?"

"– _life signs detected–"_  Bumblebee replied through the radio–even though Ratchet had managed to mostly repair his vocal processor, Bee still communicated though the radio much of the time. " _Keep a look-out, pardner_. Signal's weak."

"Might be more help to you if I knew what I was looking for," Cade replied, but before he even finished the sentence, Bee slammed on the brakes so hard that he was thrown against his seatbelt and nearly hit the steering wheel. "OW! What the hell?" he gasped, rubbing his chest where the belt had cut into him as the yellow Camaro's back end whipped around to reverse their direction. "Bumblebee, what's going on with you tonight?"

Agitated noises erupted from the radio as Bee turned down a series of narrow, dark alleys. Then a few more disjointed lines from radio and television came from the speakers. " _–eureka, I found something!– Sarge, get the medic over here!–take me to your leader–"_  With the last blurb, Cade's door popped open and his seatbelt released. When he hesitated, Bumblebee even bounced the driver's seat to urge him on.  _"–out of the car, son–"_

"Christ, all right, I'm out!" He stumbled a little as the car began to transform before he even had both feet on the ground. The darkness pressed in around him, too quiet for the city, and he glanced nervously around as Bumblebee rose to his feet. This place had "muggings and murder" written all over it.

Then again, what was really going to happen that a sixteen foot tall robot warrior couldn't handle?

Bumblebee prodded Cade in the back, urging him toward a pair of overflowing and extremely smelly dumpsters. They were wedged at the very back of the alley, covered by an overhang the robot would never fit beneath, and surrounded by mounds of trash. "Man, I don't know what you could possibly want in there," Cade grumbled as he moved forward with something less than eagerness. A blast of the Camaro's horn and seeing Bee reach to the fullest stretch of his arms and start scooping trash out of the way himself had Cade moving faster, though. He'd never seen Bumblebee so upset, not even when it looked like they were going to lose the battle of Hong Kong, but that didn't mean he was anxious to dig through trash. "Okay, okay, man, I'm going, but you really need to tell me what I'm digging for," Cade said as he started tossing trash bags out of the way.

"– _Houston, we've got a problem–nurse, get this woman to the trauma room, STAT!–take me to your leader–"_

But Cade saw her before Bumblebee's broadcast was even finished. A woman's bloody body lay crumpled between the dumpsters, covered in trash. "Oh, Jesus," he whispered, stopping dead in his tracks. He'd never seen anything so pitiful in his life. "We've got to get the cops out here. Whoever killed her might still be around–"

Monty Python blasted in his ear so loudly that his teeth vibrated.  _"I'm not dead yet!"_

Cade jumped, covering his ears. "Jesus, Bee, you don't have to scream!" he shouted, moving forward despite the stench. When he lifted a trash bag off her, he saw that she was indeed still breathing. The realization sent a jolt of adrenaline through him. He flipped his phone out of his pocket with one hand while continuing to shove trash off her with the other. "I'll call an ambulance. I don't think we should try to move her."

"– _negative, Captain,"_  Mr. Spock's voice replied, thankfully quieter this time.  _"–take me to your leader–"_  Then Bumblebee switched to his normal voice. "Load her up, she's coming with us."

Cade half-turned and gaped at the robot. "You can't be serious. Listen, I know Ratchet can fix anything, but this isn't an Autobot! We've got to get her to a hospital, Bee. She needs human medical attention, not a ride back to base."

"– _take me to your leader–"_  The line was louder this time, and Bumblebee went back to scooping trash out of the way with both hands, lying on his belly to reach further into the narrow alcove. His clear agitation was contagious and Cade pulled more refuse off of her as Bee's voice switched to heavy metal, then a commercial, before repeating the same line again.  _"–get up, gotta get out, gotta get away–a limited time, so act now!–take me to your leader–"_

"Why do you keep saying that? What exactly do you think Optimus is going to do with a beat-up human?" Cade tried to ask, but Bee punched the ground impatiently and repeated one more time, as emphatic as any scream, " _–TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER!"_

The Autobot was clearly not going to take no for an answer. Giving in, Cade shoved the phone back in his pocket and carefully eased his arms under the woman. This close she looked terrible and smelled even worse from her burial in old garbage, but her pulse felt strong despite her cold skin. Bumblebee transformed again and popped the passenger door, already reclining the seat, and Cade put her gently inside. If Bee didn't mind this stink and mess on his upholstery, who was he to argue?

He didn't even bother trying to take the wheel when he got in on the driver's side. It was obvious that Bee was in an almighty rush. Instead, Cade held on for dear life as the car tore down the street like a bat out of hell–it was a lot like riding with Shane, actually. He buckled the woman in and occasionally reached out to stabilize her when Bee skidded around corners.

The normally hour-long drive back to the Autobots' base of operations took only about twenty minutes. Bee turned the heater on high and soon Cade was sweating, but he didn't complain, especially when some color finally started to return to the stranger's cheeks. No matter how Cade questioned Bee, the radio stayed silent until they reached the drainage canal that hid the entrance to Metroplex. Bee didn't even slow down as he sped straight at an enormous storm drain–a camouflaged shortcut to the main repair bay. Its wide entrance was blocked by heavy steel bars which slid open as he approached. As soon as they passed beneath the retracted bars, however, Bumblebee started broadcasting a siren wail with near-deafening volume. Cade cursed and covered his ears, then bounced off the door when Bee whipped around another corner and into Ratchet's repair bay.

Autobots came running from all directions as Bumblebee finally braked to a halt beside one of the enormous tables the medic used to treat damaged Autobots. Cade was already reaching for his seatbelt when his door popped open again. He jumped out and rushed around the car, ready to lift the injured woman out, but Bumblebee had also opened his passenger door and was extending the seat carefully outward toward an oncoming Ratchet and Wheeljack.

"What's going on, Cade?" Ratchet asked, visually searching Bumblebee's frame as he rushed over. "Bee, where are you injured?"

"No, he's fine, it's not us. We found–"

Cade didn't get to finish his sentence. Ratchet had frozen when the woman still cradled in the passenger seat came into view. "Oh, Primus, no," he whispered, and despite the fact that his face was made of metal, he looked both horrified and nauseated. He glanced over his shoulder and started issuing orders as more Autobots entered the repair bay at a run. "Ironhide, go intercept Optimus Prime and keep him busy while we clean her up. He'll be headed this way and he doesn't need to see this. Skyfire, go back him up. Wheeljack, let's get her onto the table and see what's what. Cade, we're going to need you for this, so don't go anywhere."

Wheeljack lifted the woman carefully from the seat, finally allowing Bee to transform. The young Autobot was already shaking his head before he'd even completed his shift. Cade recognized the movie he quoted this time as Raging Bull. " _Whaddya thinkin'? You gotta tell him._ "

No one paid attention. "How long should we delay Optimus?" Ironhide asked, already shifting into his vehicle form.

"As long as you can, or until I radio with the all-clear."

Bee grabbed Ratchet's shoulder and shook him.  _"You gotta tell him and make him understand,"_  he repeated.

"Not  _now,_  Bee," Ratchet said impatiently, shaking him off. "We both know that getting him in here right now is not a good idea. Now help us with this or roll out, got it?"

Skyfire glanced from the bloody woman to Ratchet and back, clearly confused as Ironhide rolled out of the room at top speed. "I've studied human anatomy extensively, Ratchet. I might be more help to you here. I'll be happy to stay and assist."

"No, you really should go with Ironhide," Wheeljack said as he carried her to the table. "You're big enough to keep Prime out of here by force if you have to."

The enormous scientist gaped at him. "By  _force?_ " he repeated in disbelief. "I can't imagine I'd have to–"

"Oh, you'll definitely have to if he finds out what's going on," Ratchet said darkly. "Try to avoid it if you can. I don't care what you tell him, just keep her out of it or he'll go over you like a steam train."

"Why? Who is this woman?" Cade and Skyfire asked simultaneously.

Bumblebee shook his head.  _"–he's not gonna like this–"_  he said in a dark and worried voice.


	2. Rational

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cade gets a few answers, Skyfire gets a lesson, and Perceptor gets busy on a project.

Cleaning the woman up took a considerable amount of effort, but although she was covered in blood, it soon became clear that her injuries looked worse than they actually were. Despite her clothes being so bloodstained and filthy that they had to cut them off her, the initial scan Ratchet ran while Cade rushed to get a set of sweats to replace them didn't show any broken bones. Apart from blood loss, the medic declared that most of her wounds were not severe.

But the more they revealed, the more it became clear that what happened to her had been no simple assault.

As they cleaned the blood and filth away, they revealed evidence that what had befallen her had been much more deliberate. Red abrasions marred her wrists and ankles. Bruises and electrical burns covered her thin, dehydrated body like a grid, absolutely regular in their placement, some darkly new while others had faded to a greenish hue. Three fingernails were gone from each hand, leaving raw, ripped wounds that left no doubt of how they'd been lost. The only injury that didn't match the pattern was the one Ratchet declared most concerning–a hard, hot knot on the back of her head that pulsed in time with her heartbeats.

By the time they'd treated her burns and eased her into the sweats Cade contributed to replace the clothes she'd lost, there was no doubt about what had happened. She'd been tortured. From the amount of healing present in the oldest bruises and burns, whoever had done it had held her for several days, perhaps up to a week.

After twenty minutes of following Ratchet and Wheeljack's first-aid instructions–their hands were simply too big for the job of bandaging the much smaller human–Cade could no longer ignore the increasingly nervous looks the Autobots kept sending toward the doorway. "Who  _is_  this woman and how does she know Optimus?" he asked, staring down at the Autobot tattoo that he'd just revealed on the front of her left shoulder–exactly where Optimus had his own. "And don't even try to lie. Bumblebee insisted on bringing her here instead of going to a hospital–and not just to the base, but specifically to Optimus. You've all been terrified that he'll come in since we rolled in here. Someone clearly wanted something from her, and this–" he pointed at the tattoo, "–is the last straw. Give it up, guys. What the hell is going on here?"

The two exchanged glances before Wheeljack replied. "Her name's Dr. Anna Elias," he said with obvious reluctance.

When it was clear he wasn't going to say anything else, Cade prompted, "Sounds vaguely familiar, but some elaboration on that would be nice."

There was another loaded glance between the two robots before Wheeljack spoke again. "She's a theoretical physicist and engineer with a specialty in energy. She worked for NASA before we arrived. Then she worked with us for a while."

That explained why her name seemed familiar–he read a lot of engineering studies, after all, especially those about the Transformers. Cade again waited for more information but it didn't come. All right, so he'd have to pull teeth. "Worked with you, how? I thought you avoided people as much as possible when you arrived."

This time, Ratchet answered. "Optimus didn't land well, Cade. He crashed onto a granite outcrop and was severely injured. She found him and patched him up almost as well as I could've. Without her, he might not have made it."

Again, silence fell. Cade persisted. "And why are you two so sure that Optimus is going to be pissed enough to need Skyfire and Ironhide to restrain him when he finds out that the woman who saved his life is here? You're not making any sense at all, guys."

No one replied for a long moment. Finally Bumblebee started playing  _When A Man Loves A Woman._

The music only lasted a moment before Ratchet shushed him and Cade laughed… but then he noticed that no one else looked even the slightest bit amused. That tattoo suddenly took on a new kind of significance and his jaw dropped. "Wait, are you serious right now? Are you telling me that Optimus fell in  _love_  with her?"

Ratchet hesitated, then nodded. "It was mutual."

The thought of Optimus Prime falling in love with a human was incredible enough, but this? This was too much. Cade gaped at them all, torn between shock and complete disbelief that he'd heard them properly. Shock won. "But–but he's–she's not–I mean–"

Wheeljack laughed at his stuttering. "Love is rational with humans, is it? Logical? It never was on Cybertron. Maybe things are different on Earth and we haven't noticed?"

He remembered Emily, all the crazy things he'd done for her just to get her attention. No, logic had played no part in that. "Point taken," he conceded, but he still stared down at the injured woman, dumbfounded. "I just never though of Autobots as, well, the romantic type," he said lamely.

“Hey, humans don’t have a monopoly on romance,” Wheeljack said, sounding slightly offended now at his obvious surprise. “We fall in love and form life-bonds with our sparkmates just like you humans do when you marry.”

"We've got all the emotions you have," Ratchet agreed.

"Sorry," Cade said. He'd known the Autobots for almost two years now and had seen them show emotions every single day. Why did the idea that they felt love shock him so much? Changing his focus, he thought about his own history with Optimus. This woman's story was a virtual mirror of the way he'd met the Autobots. Seemed like Optimus would've mentioned it at some point during all of that. "If she and Prime are–well, whatever they are–why have I never even heard of her? Where's she been all this time?"

Finally, answers came without Cade having to dig for every word. "She was working on Energon synthesis from renewable resources instead of fossil fuels. Got pretty close to cracking the problem, too. Not only that, she's brilliant with mechanics, absolutely amazing. Can fix almost anything and invented half the first-aid instruments in this room," Ratchet said.

"And then the Decepticons found out about her work," Wheeljack picked up the story thread. "Even if they didn't realize what she was to Prime–and we're pretty sure they never did–the promise of endless, easily-synthesized Energon was plenty of reason for them to want to lay hands on her. They attacked the Ark en masse and nearly captured her. It was all we could do to stop them."

"So Optimus sent her away to throw them off the scent," Ratchet said. "She accepted a position at MIT and didn't work with Energon again, concentrating in other research shouldn't have brought her back on the Decepticons' radar. I can't say she or Optimus were truly happy with the arrangement, but they agreed it was for the best. And it seemed to be working until now." He glanced at Bumblebee. "You didn't see any Decepticons or sense any of them when you found her?"

Bumblebee shook his head. "Not a thing," he said, skipping the audio-clips for once.

Cade opened his mouth to ask something else when an earsplitting, enraged roar shook the entire base. Everyone flinched. "Holy shit–was that  _Optimus?"_  Cade gasped, shocked to the bone. He'd never heard the Autobot leader make a sound like that before, no matter how fierce the battle. Hell, he'd never heard  _any_  Autobot roar like that, not even Grimlock or the other Dinobots!

Ratchet and Wheeljack both hurried to bend over Anna again. "Yeah, and he's every bit as pissed as we thought he'd be," Ratchet said apprehensively as unintelligible shouting and floor-shaking bangs filled the air. "Cade, quick! Bandage up her fingers. Those two won't hold him for long. Maybe he won't realize how bad it was if he doesn't see–"

" _By the Allspark, Skyfire, if you don't get your metal hands off me right now, I swear I'll tear them off!"_

Cade's hands shook as he wrapped band-aids around the torn places where her fingernails had been. Ironhide was just audible, saying something in a soothing tone that didn't seem to soothe Optimus in the slightest, and his voice abruptly ended with a yell and crash that shook the walls.

"Bumblebee, you'd better go call them off before Ratchet has a couple new patients," Cade said an instant before an almighty bang rattled the floor. Shouts and the metallic impacts of what had to be a brutal wrestling match echoed down the long corridor leading into the repair bay. "I'll have these covered by the time he gets here."

Bumblebee transformed and peeled out, racing toward the sounds of battle, but he hadn't even made it out of the repair bay before Optimus Prime came charging around the corner in full battle-mode. Cade stuck the last band-aid down as quickly as possible. "Why wasn't I called immediately?" Optimus demanded, glaring at Ratchet and Wheeljack as Ironhide and Skyfire cautiously entered behind him. Ironhide limped with one hand on the wall but Skyfire looked even worse. Steam billowed from a crack in his breastplate and one shoulder-panel was nearly torn off. Ratchet instinctively started to go to him but Optimus, snarling, reached out and lifted him effortlessly back to where he'd been.

By his  _throat_.

Wheeljack held up a placating hand. "Optimus, we–"

But the enormous robot had gone suddenly, utterly still, and Cade knew he'd gotten his first look at the battered woman lying on the table. The tension in the room abruptly cranked a thousand times higher, unbearably nerve-wracking.

"We started first aid the instant she arrived," Ratchet said quickly, clearly realizing that Prime's shock wouldn't last and he'd damn well want an explanation when it wore off. "We didn't know how bad it was, and we didn't want to delay–"

"Stow it, Ratchet," Optimus growled, tightening his grip on the medic's neck. "Your excuses are unacceptable. You found time to send those two–" he glared at Skyfire and Ironhide, "–to delay me. You had time to radio and notify me that she was here."

He finally released Ratchet to approach the bed and look down at Anna, his glowing blue eyes missing nothing. No one dared to move. Slowly, his face shield retracted as he let his battle mode recede, revealing his stricken expression as he took in the still-unconscious woman's pitiful condition. "Who found her?" he asked in a voice of deadly quiet.

Bumblebee transformed behind Cade and poked him in the back, silently urging him forward. Oh, he really did not want to get involved in this, but Bee was making urgent  _hurry up_  motions behind him, and Cade could tell that if Optimus didn't get an answer immediately, there was going to be trouble. Sensing that silence would be worse than anything he could say, Cade reluctantly spoke up. "Bumblebee found her when we were coming back from the city, Prime. There wasn't anyone around, no Decepticons or anything," he added, anticipating the next question.

"She must've activated her tracker," Wheeljack said, and Bee nodded vigorously.

"That means she was desperate," Optimus whispered. "Where was she?"

Cade looked imploringly at Bumblebee, but there was no help there. Bracing himself for an explosion, he said, "In the Third Ward. She was… she was in a dumpster in an alley. I can't tell you the exact–"

Optimus's enormous fist left a dent in the wall. " _In the trash,_ " he snarled in a tone that sent shivers down Cade's spine–it promised brutal retribution for that insult. The huge Autobot started to reach for Anna, then hesitated. "How badly is she damaged?" he asked in a tone that did not hide his fear.

"It looks a lot worse than it is, Prime," Ratchet hurried to reassure him. "Lots of dents, no internal malfunctions. All her parts seem to be in good working condition. There is a head injury and some blood loss, and she could certainly use a meal and some fluids, but I think she should come back online soon." Seeing his hand hovering over her, the medic added, "It's safe to move her, if you want to."

Gently, more carefully than Cade could ever remember seeing one of the giant robots move, Optimus lifted Anna in one huge hand. She looked fragile as a newborn kitten in his palm. "She is supposed to be a thousand miles away from here," he murmured as if to himself, looking down at her. "That was the plan. She was to be  _safe._  Why was she here at all?"

Cade couldn't think of a thing to say. However unbelievable it seemed to him, there was no denying that Ratchet and Wheeljack were right. The Autobot leader loved this woman.

Finally, Optimus tore his gaze away from her and looked down at Bumblebee and Cade. "Thank you for bringing her here," he said, and then turned to leave the repair bay with Anna still cradled in his hand. No one made any attempt to stop him.

Ratchet slumped against the now-empty table in obvious relief. "Best get over here, Skyfire, and let me slap a weld on that leak," he said, sounding glad to have something to do that didn't involve Optimus throwing him around by the throat. Skyfire nodded and limped over, pressing a hand to the rushing steam. "Ironhide, you're next, so don't go anywhere. I see that crack in your catalytic converter–"

Optimus paused in the doorway. "Cade," he said without turning around. "I would be grateful for your assistance."

He glanced at Bumblebee, surprised at the request. The yellow robot nodded encouragingly and gave him two thumbs-up. "Sure," Cade said, jogging to catch up with the thirty foot tall robot. "Just tell me what you need, Optimus." When he stopped beside him, Optimus lowered his other hand so Cade could climb on.

Optimus stood when Cade was settled securely. He didn't bring Cade quite beside her, but as he began to walk down the hall, Cade was close enough to look over at her, seeing the whole picture instead of focusing on the wounds themselves. She was of average height with shoulder-length dark hair and what was probably a very pretty face when it wasn't covered in burns and bruises. He wondered how badly she'd scar, and not only on her skin.

He wondered just how this unconventional love story had started.

"This must seem very… strange… to you."

Optimus's quiet voice made Cade jump. He'd been so intent on his own thoughts that he'd almost forgotten anything else. Glancing up, he saw Optimus gazed fixedly ahead rather than down at the two humans he carried, expression carefully blank. Cade wasn't fooled, though. Prime cradled her protectively against his chest, right over his spark, and despite the years of implicit trust he and Cade shared, he hadn't brought his hands together. He held the two humans apart.

Oh, yes, Ratchet and Wheeljack hadn't exaggerated at all.

Before the silence could stretch too long, Cade answered him. "Yeah, a little bit," he said, still looking up into the huge face. "I think it's stranger that you kept it a secret, though. It's not like you. Why did you never talk about her?"

"She is my most guarded secret," Optimus replied, his voice still softer. "I speak of her to no one, Cade, and none of the other Autobots would ever have done so. I trust you, but what you did not know, you could not be forced to reveal should you ever be captured. I could not allow our enemies to discover this… weakness. I hope you know that this was not personal or any indication of a lack of faith in you."

"I know." And he did. The Autobots had never treated him as anything less than an equal, a full partner in their war, but more than that, he understood the soul-deep need to protect a loved one. Sending her away had to have been hard enough. Never speaking of her? Even worse. "I understand. No one could know about her or she wouldn't be safe. They'd try to use her against you."

"But someone found out." Prime's voice lowered, hardened. "And when I find out who is responsible for this, I'll make them curse the day they were assembled."

Silence fell between them until Optimus stopped outside Cade's room. "I must ask for your help, Cade," he said, kneeling to lower Cade to the ground. "My quarters aren't equipped with human comforts. I have nothing soft for her to rest upon or to keep her warm. Please, whatever you can spare would be greatly appreciated."

"Sure thing, Optimus. I'll be right back."

Cade slid down and entered his room. He dragged his mattress down off the box-spring and yanked off the sheets without hesitation, then manhandled it through the narrow door. "Carry that, will you?" he panted when it was halfway out. "I'll bring some clean sheets and blankets." Optimus grasped the heavy King mattress and lifted it effortlessly while Cade grabbed a stack of spare bedding from his closet.

Optimus hadn't moved from the tall corridor outside when Cade returned. "You would give up your own sleeping surface," he said, holding the mattress in one hand. "That is very generous of you. Thank you."

"Yeah, well, she needs it more than I do," Cade said, still a little winded from his struggle with the mattress. It was heavier than he'd remembered. "I can pile some comforters up on the floor and it won't bother me, but with all those burns and bruises, she–"

The low growl rumbling in Prime's chest stopped the words in Cade's throat and he belatedly remembered how anxious Wheeljack and Ratchet had been to shield Optimus from the full extent of Anna's injuries.

The injuries he'd just described in far too much detail.

" _Burns and bruises?"_  Prime growled, fury vibrating in his voice.

Cade took an involuntary step back. Even knowing that Optimus would never hurt him, standing next to an enraged Autobot wasn't on his list of favorite things. The memory of Skyfire's broken chest housing and Ironhide's many dents came back to him vividly. "Ah," he said awkwardly, wishing he could take back what he'd let slip. "Well, um, what I meant was–"

"Exactly what you said," Optimus cut across him. Leaning down further, he pierced Cade with his gaze. "Ratchet said her injuries were not severe and that she will recover!"

"Yeah, she will!" But Cade's words did nothing more than make Optimus glare again. "Look, whoever did this was rough on her, there's no hiding that," he said, speaking fast, wanting to get this over with quickly. "But it looks like they wanted to cause pain, not kill her."

"You're telling me she was  _tortured?"_  Prime's shout echoed down the hall.

" _I don't know_ , all right?" Cade said desperately. "But whatever happened, she's going to be sore while she heals and she deserves the soft bed. That's all I meant. She  _will_  heal, Optimus."

Optimus glared at him for a moment more before closing his eyes. Cade saw that his fingers had closed protectively around Anna, but then Optimus rose to his feet again. "Let's get this set up and make her comfortable," he said in the tones of one trying to put something deeply unpleasant out of his mind. "And afterward, you can tell me what was done to her in greater detail."

Cade hurried to keep up, clutching the awkward bundle of pillows, sheets, and comforters as he ran. "Are you sure you want me to?"

"No, I'm sure I don't. But you're going to tell me anyway because I need to know." His face darkened into the fiercest scowl Cade had ever seen the Autobot leader wear. "I must know how to properly repay her captors."

They turned a corner and the door to Optimus Prime's quarters slid open automatically. The huge room looked almost barren to Cade's eyes, but he knew that it contained everything an Autobot needed. The cool, almost chilly temperature was perfect for the robots. A computer terminal was set in the wall about ten feet up–far out of Cade's reach, but an optimal height for the much larger Autobots–near a power coupling, an Energon dispenser, and a vidscreen with a single large chair in front of it. And that was all.

Optimus put the mattress down in the corner nearest the computer and Cade hurried to tuck a fresh sheet around it. He stood back while the Autobot gently eased Anna onto the soft surface before Cade tucked a pillow carefully beneath her head and finally spread two blankets over her.

Optimus knelt beside her, settling down as close as he could get without actually getting onto the mattress. Cade stood awkwardly when he was done, feeling acutely out-of-place as Prime stared down at Anna. "Um… I'll just go, then?"

"No, stay where you are," Optimus ordered. Cade was taken aback by the command but Prime immediately raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture. When he spoke again, his tone was much softer. "Forgive me, Cade. I meant to say that I would appreciate it if you would stay, please. When she comes back online, seeing another human might be comforting in case… in case humans were not the ones who did this to her."

"Sure, I'll wait with you," he agreed. Given what had happened, Cade wasn't going to judge Prime for being a little snappy, and he had a good point. The persecution of the Autobots had lessened greatly, but there would always been some people who feared and hated anything they didn't understand. Still, knowing what he did now, it seemed much more likely that humans hadn't been involved. "You… you suspect the Decepticons did this." He tried to make it a question, but they both knew the answer and it came out as a statement.

"Yes," Optimus answered unnecessarily. "They almost captured her once before."

"What happened?"

The question hung in the air for a moment before he answered. "We stopped them," Optimus said simply. "And then we decided that she would be safer elsewhere."

Cade hesitated, then said what was on his mind. "I think she's probably safer with you than anywhere else now, Optimus. Don't you think she should stay here? There are more Autobots here than there were even six months ago. Surely with all of you between her and the Decepticons, they have no chance of getting to her again."

"No one will  _ever_  hurt her again." It was less a statement than a vow, and although his eyes were actually optic sensors, thoroughly mechanical, Cade almost thought he could read the deep emotions in them. When Optimus reached out one large finger and touched her hand, Cade looked away. Despite their vast differences–a human woman and a thirty foot robot, one young, one unimaginably old–it was a touch of almost unbearable intimacy, and witnessing it felt like voyeurism.

But that incredibly gentle touch roused Anna. She shrieked with all her might and kicked Prime's hand away. He recoiled as though she'd blasted him with a laser cannon. "Don't touch me, you malfunctioning son of a microwave!" she screamed, fighting free of the blankets with panicked desperation and then rolling back over the mattress until she pressed hard against the wall. Her entire body quaked in terror. "Get the hell away from me!"

"Anna." Optimus didn't move, didn't reach for her again. He did no more than speak her name.

It was enough. She froze in place, hands still outstretched to ward off the attack she obviously feared. "Optimus Prime?" she whispered, her eyes wide but unfocused.

In the next instant, she shook her head hard. "No! It's a trick!"

Her agitation snapped Cade out of his shocked immobility. He rushed forward, reaching across the mattress to catch hold of her hands–if the touch of metal had terrified her, maybe the feel of human skin would calm her. "It's not a trick, you're at Autobot headquarters," he said, trying to hold her without hurting her. "I'm Cade Yaeger–I was with Bumblebee when he found you, and Optimus Prime is right here–"

She yanked her hands free and yelped with pain as the movement squeezed her raw fingertips. Her eyes were still wide, frantically scanning all around her, but Cade suddenly realized that she wasn't focusing on anything.

_She couldn't see._

Optimus seemed to realize it at the same moment. He let out a raw sound of mingled fury and despair. "What happened to your eyes, Anna?" he demanded, bending so close that they were almost nose-to-nose.  _"Who did this to you?"_

Anna didn't answer at first. Then slowly, hands still shaking, she reached out until she touched Prime's face and ran her hands over the metal, reading the planes and grooves like a blind woman. He held perfectly still for her examination. "Is it really you?" she whispered, and the raw hope in her voice made Cade wince for her. "I can't… the light from your eyes is right, but I can't see… is it really you?" Then her tone changed as she snatched her hands back. "Prove it!" she screamed, once more ready to fight or flee.

"You've still got my old broken parts in your garage," Optimus said, his deep voice incredibly gentle. "Or at least you did, the last time we were there. You always said you were going to get rid of them and you never did."

She gasped his name, reaching out again in the same instant Prime did. This time she didn't shove his hand away but clutched his fingers hard as though holding on for dear life. "It's really you," she gasped, sounding as though she'd been punched hard in the stomach. "Oh, God, it's really you! I didn't tell them anything, I didn't–" And she burst into tears, hiding her face against his metal palm. "I didn't, I swear I didn't–"

"Shh, Anna, I know," Prime replied, closing his fingers around her so very gently. "You're safe now. I swear on my spark, you are safe now."

Cade backed out of the room. They didn't need him for this and it was incredibly painful to watch. They were together, they were touching, but seeing this only brought home to Cade how very far apart they were.

Most of the Autobots were standing nervously at the far end of the corridor when Cade turned the corner, grouped close to the bend that led into the repair bay. "How is Dr. Elias?" Prowl asked as Cade neared them. "We heard the scream. Is she still functional?"

"Yes, she just woke up scared," Cade reassured them. "Who wouldn't be?" He hesitated, then looked up at Ratchet. "But I think that head injury is more serious than you thought, Ratchet. She can't see."

"Vector Sigma," the medic breathed, and Hound cursed and punched the wall.

Cade nodded unhappily. "Once Optimus convinced her that it was really him and not a trick, she fell apart. He's trying to calm her down now. He seems like he's handling it fairly well," he added, sensing the unspoken question.

"For now, he is," said Ironhide, glancing toward Optimus's door. "He'll continue handling it well for as long as she needs him to. After that…" He cracked his knuckles. "I think Megatron's finally going to get the ass-kicking that's been coming to him for far too long. He went way too far this time."

Skyfire shifted on his enormous feet. The largest Autobot at nearly fifty feet tall, he barely fit in the huge corridor. "This is very strange," he said at last. "Our Prime and a human. It doesn't seem right."

"You don't know her, Skyfire, but if you did, you wouldn't say that," Perceptor said. "She's human, yes, but she's exceptional. Keep an open mind. If anyone is a fit match for Prime, it's her."

Ratchet straightened from his lean against the wall. "Well, standing around talking about them isn't helpful," he said with his usual pragmatism. "So let's get busy on things that are. Cade, hop in and I'll take you to into town to get her some clothes. You were generous to give her yours, but she'll need some of her own when she's up and around again. We can pick up whatever else you think she'll need at the same time." He transformed and Cade gladly got in.

When they returned, Cade carried the shopping bags down to Optimus's area. He tapped on the door and spoke into the intercom. "Hey, Ratchet and I picked up a few things. Can I come in?"

"Yes, Cade. You may enter."

Optimus was still sitting right where he'd been, watching Anna sleep with his hand beside her on the bed. She was holding onto one of his fingers like her life depended on it, even in sleep, and it didn't look like Optimus had moved an inch since Cade had left two hours ago. He walked quietly toward the giant robot. "How's she doing?"

"I am not sure. She would not eat, but she drank a great deal. At least she is sleeping now, not unconscious."

"How are  _you_ doing?"

Optimus just shrugged. Not pressing for more of an answer, Cade put the bags down beside the mattress and pulled out what he'd brought. "I guessed at her sizes. These should be loose enough not to be too uncomfortable," he said, laying out several long-sleeved shirts and yoga pants. Next came three bottles of pills. He showed them to Optimus one by one so he could identify them for her when she awakened. "Multivitamins and iron supplement–that's for the blood loss–and this one is Tylenol, for the pain… oh, and some socks, and this–" He took out a large bag. "This is chocolate, because every woman I've ever known has considered chocolate a necessity in times of stress. There are a few other things in there, mostly toiletries. When she wakes up, let me know and I'll make her a hot meal. Do you need anything else?"

Prime looked down at him. "Thank you," he said quietly. "Your thoughtfulness honors us. I cannot think of anything else she would require."

"Tessa trained me well," Cade replied with a smile. "If I forgot anything, well, you know where to find me."

"Again, I thank you."

Cade left but ran almost immediately into Perceptor hurrying along the passage with his enormous arms full of parts. "Hey, who's hurt?" he asked, alarmed as he recognized several key components in the jumble. "I didn't see any sign of an attack!"

"No, no, it's nothing like that," the scientist replied, glancing once at Prime's doorway but looking quickly away. "Wheeljack, Ratchet, and I are working on a project. I can't talk now, but I'll tell you all about it later, all right?" And he hurried away without another word.


	3. The Big Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perceptor and Wheeljack reveal what they've been working on. Optimus is less than enthusiastic.

The next evening, Cade wandered into the control room to find that Optimus had left his bedside vigil for the first time since Anna's arrival. He, Drift, Hound and Ironhide were grouped around Teletraan 1 analyzing a series of readouts. "Hey, guys, what's up?"

"We've got Teletraan looking for any Decepticon activity in the area," Hound answered as Optimus punched a few buttons. "Bumblebee and Prowl are making the rounds, too."

Cade nodded. He didn't need to see Optimus's intense stare at the screen to know he was seething to take revenge on the Decepticons. "Anything I can do to help?"

Before anyone could answer, Cade heard a quiet footstep behind him. He already knew who it was before he turned to see Anna walking slowly down the corridor, feeling her way along the walls. She'd changed into the clothes he'd bought for her and her sock-clad feet made almost no sound on the concrete floor. "Oh, hey, you're up!" Cade said, recovering from his surprise quickly and hurrying over to her. "Here, take my arm and I can guide you if you want. You probably don't remember me, but I'm–"

"Cade Yeager. I remember your voice," Anna finished for him. She reached out, found his arm by touch and slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. "Optimus has told me about you and your daughter, and all the help you've given the Autobots during the time I've been away. He said we're not on the Ark and I'm not familiar with this base–where are we now?"

"You're a few meters from the entrance to the control room." It was Optimus who answered before Cade could. He'd left Teletraan 1 and now stood in the doorway. "My apologies, Anna. I shouldn't have left you alone–I didn't expect you to be up and around so soon."

She smiled and turned her face toward Prime's voice. "No, you definitely should have. You despise sitting still just as much as I hate being useless." Cade led her forward as Prime knelt and lowered a hand. "Thank you," she said to Cade as she climbed into the huge hand.

Prime lifted her to his shoulder. She seemed to expect this and clambered from his palm to settle herself securely amid the metal supports as he straightened.

Hound smiled up at her as Optimus and Cade rejoined the group around Teletraan. "Been a while, Anna," he said. "I hear we're gonna kick Megatron's ass. Wanna come along?"

She laughed. "Hound! Of course I do. I just wish I could see it for myself. Do you want to do the play by play for me?"

His smile faltered. "Every single punch," he promised.

She kept her smile in place by sheer force of will. "I'll look forward to your color commentary. Who else is around?"

"Drift here," the Autobot warrior said from beside Teletraan 1. "I am glad you have returned, Anna."

"And Ironhide," the weapons specialist added, smiling at her even though she couldn't see it. "It's been too long, Anna. I've kind of missed seeing you sitting up there on Prime's shoulder."

She wrapped her arms around one of the metal supports beside her in a kind of hug. "I've kind of missed being up here myself. Speaking of which, you–" she kicked out and hit the side of Optimus's head with unerring accuracy, making Cade suspect that this wasn't the first time she'd done it, "–had better not even think about another  _banished for my own safety_  thing again. Once is enough."

Ironhide and Hound laughed as Prime shook his head, smiling slightly. "Yes, ma'am."

Perceptor and Wheeljack entered from the other side and stopped short when they saw Optimus. Their leader didn't miss their hesitation. "All right, you're up to something," he said, pointing at the pair of them. "I don't know what it is, but I'm not sure I've ever seen you two looking guiltier. What are you doing?"

Perceptor shifted on his massive feet, reminding Cade strongly of a schoolboy in trouble. "Well, it's not quite finished yet, Optimus," he said. "We're not ready to unveil it. How about we tell you all about it tomorrow or maybe the next day?"

Wheeljack shook his head in time with Prime. "He's not going to go for that. Come on, looks like we'll have to reveal our little project early."

"You certainly will," Optimus said darkly. "Lead the way."

The two scientists led Cade and the Autobots down another corridor and into Wheeljack's lab. Everyone stopped dead in the doorway when they saw what stood beside the huge assembly table.

After a stunned, silent moment, Bumblebee broadcast a loud wolf-whistle. Optimus recovered at the sound and moved forward to look closer. "Someone had better start explaining immediately," he growled. "Or have you forgotten what happened the last time you tried this kind of stunt?"

"What happened? What stunt?" Anna demanded when only silence met Optimus's question. No one answered her. "Hello! Some of us can't see what's going on!" Still nothing. "Hound, you promised me a play-by-play!"

Hound took one look at Prime's face and shifted uncomfortably. "Of the battle, yes, but this–"

" _Hound!"_

"Sorry, Optimus," Hound said, giving in to the inevitable. He circled the table and looked the new robot over with what seemed like awe. "It's an Autobot, Anna. They've built a new Autobot. She's not like the Dinobots or that thing Sparkplug made out of spare parts, either. This thing… this thing looks sharp, guys, first-class, but Prime hasn't authorized a new Autobot build for a long time. Why make this one now?"

Bumblebee broadcast  _ooh la la!_  "Getting lonely, guys?" he added, teasing.

Optimus wasn't looking at the Autobot, though, and he didn't join in the teasing. He was staring at the smaller table beside it which held something that vaguely resembled an MRI machine. "No," he said before Wheeljack or Ratchet could respond. "Absolutely not. We've done this before and it has always ended in disaster. It's far too risky!"

"This isn't like what happened with Spike, Optimus," Wheeljack protested, moving to stand beside his creation. "We're not working with spare parts this time, and this one isn't something we scrambled together at the last minute. When Spike used Autobot X, we had to reconfigure it in an hour or he would've died. This time, we've taken what we learned then and–"

"I don't care what you've done differently this time. It's too dangerous!"

Anna was turning her head from voice to voice like a spectator at a tennis match. Finally she pulled herself to her feet on Prime's shoulder. "Put me down, Optimus, please."

He hesitated but finally lowered her to the floor. She walked forward, hands outstretched, until she touched another Autobot. "Who's this?"

"Ironhide," he said, bending down. "What do you need?"

She turned without answering and walked until she touched metal again. "And this?"

"It's–I'm Skyfire." He looked a little alarmed as she turned away again.

She felt her way in a different direction, this time stopping with her hands on the new Autobot's leg. "Who's this?"

"That's their creation," Hound said. "What are you–"

The answer to his question became clear before he'd even finished asking it as she started to climb up the leg, feeling for the hand and footholds she couldn't see. "Anna, that's not a good idea," Optimus said, reaching out as if to pluck her from the robot's leg.

"Hush," she said, climbing up the thigh now. "None of you are telling me what's going on, so I'll have to find out for myself."

No one spoke as she scaled the robot's body. When she reached the chest, she reached between two metal plates and half-vanished from view. They heard her feeling around inside, exploring everything. "You guys went nuts with the armor," she called. "What does this one transform into, Fort Knox?"

Wheeljack pretended not to see Prime's glare as he answered. "Nothing's been imprinted yet. When we activate it, y– _she'll_  be able to choose."

" _If,_ not  _when_ ," Optimus growled. "And it's a damn big  _if._ "

She shifted her feet until she could reach out and touch one of the arms. "It's certainly big," she said, running her fingers over the cables. "How tall?"

"About twenty five feet," Ratchet said, taking a cue from Wheeljack and ignoring Prime's displeasure. "A little taller than Ironhide but not quite as big as Prime."

She felt around a little more, even leaning over precariously from the Autobot's waist so she could explore the forearm mechanisms. Cade thought Optimus was going to snatch her up then and there. "I don't feel any weapons systems," she commented, unaware or uncaring of Prime's growing agitation.

"Ah." Wheeljack glanced at Ratchet with obvious discomfort before the two of them spoke at the same time. "Well, this Autobot won't… won't need any weapons."

"We didn't think Prime would authorize any," Ratchet said simultaneously.

"Hmm. Huge, female, with tons of armor and no weapons. Really  _interesting_  design, guys."

She scaled the chest, then sat on its shoulder in the same position she'd occupied on Prime's minutes before. "All right, so if I'm understanding this correctly, you've probably got some kind of electrical sequencing imager or cortical mapper hooked up to this to transfer a personality into this blank shell, right? I feel the cables here." She patted a pair of thick cables protruding from the back of the metal skull.

Cade's jaw dropped. How the hell had she deduced that from simply climbing the thing? He was damn good at intuitively figuring out machinery, but even he wasn't  _that_  good.

No one answered, but Anna didn't seem to need anyone to. She leaned against the thing's head. "Maybe someone should tell me what happened last time before I decide if I want to try this or not."

"Absolutely not," Prime growled again. "This thing is not safe!"

She waved a hand in the direction of his voice. "Someone other than Optimus, I think. How about you, Wheeljack?"

Wheeljack looked sheepishly into Prime's glare. "You're a cruel woman, Anna."

"Yeah, well, I already picked on Hound and it's good to spread these things out. Give it up, Wheeljack. What happened to Spike and what have you done differently this time? I want the whole story."

" _Everyone out!"_

Prime's command silenced the room. Cade didn't even consider disobeying, and it seemed like the Autobots were only too happy to comply, too. In seconds, the door closed behind them, leaving Anna and Optimus alone in Wheeljack's lab.

"That didn't go well," Skyfire murmured, looking worriedly at the closed door.

"It went as well as we could've expected," Wheeljack contradicted him. "You weren't here when we linked Spike into Autobot X. It wasn't a total disaster–I mean, he lived and everything worked out all right in the end–but it wasn't exactly a technical triumph, either." He shrugged and leaned against the wall. "I knew we wouldn't convince Prime to use it. She'll have to be the one to do that."

"She'll never convince him. Didn't you hear him? He's dead set against it," Skyfire said, shaking his head. "I know Optimus."

"Yeah, but you don't know Anna." Ironhide actually chuckled. "She's the only one who could ever talk him around when he gets like that."

"So he's just going to give in?" Skyfire sounded shocked that his leader could be manipulated.

"Now, hold up a minute, that's not what I said. They've got a good partnership, Skyfire," Ironhide explained. "He talks, she listens. She talks, he listens. If you'll notice, you don't hear any shouting in there." He paused a moment to make his point, and Cade realized he was right. "And you won't hear any no matter how long they're in there. They won't be fighting. They'll be talking. It's anyone's guess what the outcome will be at this point."


	4. Not Exactly a Dream Come True

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically, will they or won't they?

Anna waited until she heard the door close behind the departing Autobots before she spoke again. When she was sure they were alone, she softened her voice and said, "All right, talk to me, Optimus. This thing sounds like a dream come true but you're totally against it. What happened with Spike and the dinosaur-bots to make you react like this?"

"Dinobots," he said, big hands still working–she could hear the soft whirr of the servos and could picture the movement even if she couldn't see it. He must truly be upset to show that nervous tic. "They're called Dinobots."

"That was a correction, not an answer to my question," she replied when it was clear that he didn't plan on elaborating. "What happened? I need to know everything, start to finish."

He didn't speak for a long moment. She didn't say anything, just waited, and finally he sighed again. "The Dinobots were made by Wheeljack and Ratchet right after you left," he replied at last. "At that time, we desperately needed reinforcements. Spike had shown them some dinosaur fossils and described the strength of those ancient creatures, which inspired them to create Autobots in their image." The faint blue glow moved from side to side as Optimus shook his head. "It wasn't a good idea," he said dryly.

"How so?"

"They went mad within minutes of coming online," he said wearily. "They rampaged through the Ark, nearly destroying Teletraan –the damage they did is a big part of why we had to leave the Ark and move headquarters here, on Metroplex. They were created to be incredibly strong and powerful, but their brand new minds could not exert enough control to keep themselves in line. It was all we could do to subdue them, but they never fully stabilized."

"How did you finally deactivate them?"

He huffed a little humorless laugh. "We didn't. Wheeljack was able to upgrade their processors a little bit. They can think a bit now and they will occasionally return and aid us, but for the most part, they're out there doing their own thing. They are Dinobots, a discrete unit with their own priorities, taking orders only from their leader, Grimlock. And I am sorry to say that Grimlock has turned on us, and me specifically, several times."

Anna sat quietly for a minute, thinking. "Now tell me what happened with Spike."

Optimus sighed. "It was rather less deliberately planned than the Dinobots, but no less of a mistake. Sparkplug–you remember him, Spike's father–tried to create an Autobot from spare parts. We still had a pressing need for reinforcements after the fiasco of the Dinobots or I never would've allowed him to bring it online. When he did, the thing was completely uncontrollable. It attacked on sight. There was no reason to it, no intelligence, no… no  _spark,_  just aggression. We shut it down and I ordered it disassembled, but before Wheeljack could do so, the Decepticons attacked. We drove them back, but during the battle, Bee took a direct hit with Spike at the wheel.

"Spike was in a coma, terribly injured. The doctors said they didn't dare operate on him in his condition for fear of causing permanent brain damage, but if they didn't operate, he would die. Sparkplug and Wheeljack created the mind transfer device and sent Spike's mind into Autobot X, enabling him to have the surgery that saved his life."

Anna heard more in Optimus' tone than he was saying. "And the madness of Autobot X infected him, didn't it," she said, not really a question. "He attacked you?"

"He did," he replied wearily. "He wrecked the base and we didn't dare fight him at full strength because of the risk of permanently damaging his mind. The Decepticons found him in that condition and his confusion and fear made his mind unstable, easy to confuse. He… he turned on us, Anna. He sided with them against us."

"Pick me up, Optimus." She waited until she felt her Autobot–and she already thought of it as hers–rock slightly with the touch of his hand, and stepped confidently forward onto his hand, knowing he wouldn't ever let her fall. Settling herself cross-legged in his palm, she tried to face him. "Did he come back?" she asked quietly. "Were you able to bring him back from the madness?"

His hand moved slightly under her, bringing her closer to his face so she could see the blue light of his eyes and adjust her gaze accordingly. Since she'd woken up yesterday, that blue glow had been the only thing she'd been able to see. "He did come back from it, but not before he threw his own father over a cliff and nearly killed him," Optimus said. "We were seconds away from using deadly force against him when he realized what he'd done and snapped out of it."

"Not exactly a dream come true," Anna sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. "Those stories are really not what I wanted to hear, you know."

"I don't want you to do this, Anna," Optimus said, his deep voice full of emotion. "This is an entirely different situation from Spike's. This isn't life-or-death and it isn't worth the risk this mind-transfer poses to you. And it might not even work. A failure would erase your mind entirely." When she didn't say anything, he pressed harder. "Even if it does work, you could go mad. We might be forced to fight you, and I… I do not know if I could do that. I  _fear_  that I could not do that, that I would not give the order to do it, and that you could… you could…"

He didn't finish the sentence, but this time Anna didn't push him to go on. She wrapped an arm around his thumb and leaned against it. "I know," she said softly. "I know, Optimus. It scares me, too. But if you want me to be honest? It's also something I've wanted ever since I met you. I never thought it was possible or I'd have been begging for a chance like this years ago."

His hand twitched with surprise and she smiled. "Come on, you can't be surprised by that!" she said. "I spent my life learning everything I can about physics and engineering even before I found you. Then you fell into my backyard and you're the most amazing thing I've ever encountered in my life. And the more I came to know you, the more I wished I could be like you. Of  _course_  I've dreamed of being an Autobot, even before I had feelings for you. If there's any chance at all that we could truly be together–"

Prime made a sound deep in his chest. "You must know that I wish we were alike as well, but to risk your very existence…"

"Optimus, it's more than just that."

"What else could make you wish take such a risk?"

She hesitated for a moment. Then she spoke slowly. "I know how you feel about what Megatron says, but I need you to listen to me for a minute and not tell me that it's poison or lies or nonsense. Can you do that for me?"

A deep, rumbling growl came from Prime's chest, but to his credit, it was only a brief pause before he agreed. "I will listen," he gritted out. "But if you are going to criticize yourself, or try to convince me that you're lesser in some way–"

"Shh, stop. You can't tell me I'm wrong before you know what I'm going to be wrong about," she interrupted, smiling despite herself when he grumbled into silence, clearly disliking even the thought of whatever she was about to say that required a preface like that. God, it was madness, she knew that, but she did truly love this Autobot.

Now was not the time to tell him that, though. This was too important to get off-track.

Anna focused. "Both times you've described the creation of new Autobots as arising from desperation for reinforcements," she said, choosing her words with care. "And that's because the Decepticons were strong, as strong as you are. They still are, even though you have more Autobots with you now."

"We will never need help so badly to risk your li–" he cut in.

"No, Optimus, you promised to listen to this, even to the parts you won't like," Anna said, not letting him finish. "I need you to really listen to me and think like the Prime you are. All right?"

The glow of his eyes jerked abruptly up and down–a very grudging nod. "Speak your piece, then."

Anna took a deep breath, gathering her thoughts, and went on. "The strength you alone possess is completely outside human experience. You're nearly thirty feet tall, you weigh four and a half tons, you're armor-plated, you have weapons systems on top of guns on top of missiles, and the battles are  _still_  hard for you. Am I right so far?"

Another abrupt nod.

"Optimus," she said, softening her voice, "I'm barely five and a half feet tall, and I have no weapons or armor, but I'm in this war, too."

"Damn it, Anna, you have  _me_ ," he growled, sounding as though the words were ripped from him despite his effort to keep silent. "And every other Autobot here!"

"No," she murmured. "I didn't."

She felt him flinch but didn't let that deter her. "I don't blame you," she added hurriedly, knowing she'd just hurt him. "We both agreed that I should go, but things have changed now. They know who I am and what I know. Do you think they won't try again? Humans  _are_  the small, weak, pitiful creatures he calls us, and I can't even see to run away anymore, much less fight! I'm helpless to defend myself and I'm useless to your team and I'm  _scared,_  Optimus!"

" _Stop."_

He didn't speak loudly, didn't shout, but the pain in his voice still cut through her and she fell silent. Only in the stillness that followed did she realize that the shaking she felt wasn't only coming from her own muscles. He was trembling, too.

She took slow, deep breaths, pushing the memories back down until she could speak again without the threat of tears in her tone. "And one thing stands out to me from the stories you've just told me," she said, her voice only a little tight. "Spike and the Dinobots were slammed into those bodies without any warning. The shock of it… well, I know human nature, and when we are thrown into a frightening situation we can't understand or control, we fight. We fight as though our lives depend on it. I'd guess the same thing is true of Autobots. Suddenly awakened, surrounded by strangers… I'm not surprised they panicked."

"You think being mentally prepared will be enough to keep you from going mad?" Optimus asked, his voice still rough, but without anger.

"I don't know, honestly, but it can't hurt. It probably won't be enough on its own. But there are other things we can do, too." She paused for a moment, looking up to find the faint blue glow in a sea of blurred darkness that was all she could see now. "I don't want to dismiss it out of hand. I want to try to make it safe," she said softly. "I  _need_  this, Optimus. Please don't shut the project down."

Finally, Optimus grudgingly sighed. "We… we can discuss it," he said at last. "I don't like it, and I'm not promising that we will ever activate that thing they built. If there is too much risk to you then I will never allow it to be activated, and that  _is_  a promise. But I will agree to more research before we make the final decision."

"Thank you," Anna whispered.

.

No one seemed inclined to leave the hall, and Cade settled down to wait with the rest of them. The possibility of transferring a human intelligence into an Autobot body had never occurred to him and the science, when Wheeljack explained it to him, was absolutely fascinating. Ratchet described some of the mechanics and even Skyfire joined in the discussion soon despite his continuing hesitance regarding Anna.

Nearly an hour passed before the door opened and Optimus put his head out. "Wheeljack, on point. I need some questions answered." Wheeljack scrambled to obey, and the door closed again behind him.

Skyfire was clearly taken aback. Ironhide gave him a crooked smile. "See? She's good. That's not a yes, but it's no longer a no, either."

"That's… surprising," he replied, shaking his head.

"Oh, I wouldn't say so," Ironhide said, his smile broadening. "Come on, you really think he could say no to her right now?"

Skyfire frowned, looking at the weapons officer like he was crazy. "Well, yes, of course he could," he said. "Why not?"

"Spoken like a bot who's never been in love," Hound snorted.

Cade had lost track of time before the door opened once more. Optimus walked out, looking a little disgruntled, but Anna sat on his shoulder again and although she looked pale and exhausted, she was smiling.

Prime looked at Skyfire and Ratchet. "We will try it," he said, and Cade definitely heard the reluctance in his voice. "Skyfire, I want you in on this project too. Your knowledge of the human nervous system will be useful and Wheeljack and Ratchet are going to need your help to make a few adjustments. Let us know when you're finished with that thing and I'll come in for the final step."

Skyfire nodded immediately. His hesitance about this odd relationship did not affect his loyalty at all. "What adjustments are needed?" he asked.

This time Anna answered instead of Optimus. "It needs some fail-safes, and you're going to have to make the whole thing wireless to make them work. An automatic reversal in case the Autobot body is damaged to 25% operating capacity or less, for one. I also need to be able to shut it down myself–as it is now, I'll be stuck in the link unless someone else ends the transmission. Secondly, it's stupid not to give me any weapons, so we'll have to work on that side of things, but only once I've shown that I can control the body without going crazy and trying to smash everything in sight. And on that note, you'll need to make a few additions to Optimus Prime's brain too."

That took the smile off everyone's faces. "What?" Ironhide said, frowning. "Why would they modify Prime's brain?"

Wheeljack looked only marginally happier than Prime as he explained further. "Someone needs to have a kill-switch for Anna's Autobot," he told Skyfire. "It makes sense for it to be Optimus. If she… well, if there's any reason she'd need to be stopped immediately, Optimus can pull the plug and shut her down."

Ratchet crossed his arms. "What'll happen to her consciousness if that happens? An abrupt power-down like that…"

"I'll go back to this body," Anna answered. "Which, again, is why the system needs to be wireless. Wherever I am, I need to be able to instantly transfer back here."

"I still don't like it," Optimus grumbled, but Anna stroked the side of his head with one hand and he subsided.

"We'll get to work right away," Wheeljack said, nudging Skyfire with his foot. "Come on. Let's get started."


	5. Seaspray

 

It took three days for Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Skyfire to make the necessary modifications to the new Autobot. Cade contributed what he could to the process, but even when he was clearly in over his head, wild horses couldn't have torn him out of the bay. Watching an Autobot being created had to be one of the coolest things he'd ever seen.

Anna was also a constant presence. At first he felt unsure how to react to her, but it was impossible to be around her for long without relaxing. She asked even more questions than he did, and teased poor Skyfire endlessly because of his clear shyness around her. It didn't seem to ease his tension at all. Privately, Cade thought Hound had hit the nail on the head back when they'd been waiting for Prime's decision–this Autobot had no experience whatsoever with females.

Perceptor and Wheeljack didn't hesitate to discuss their work with both Anna and Cade, and Cade was immediately impressed by her engineering brilliance. Even he couldn't follow all of it and he'd been working with, and on, the Autobots for two years. And whenever the work wasn't going well, she sang. Enthusiastically. And badly. Even Skyfire joined in when they begged her to stop, and that only made her laugh and sing louder. If Bumblebee was around, he played loud accompaniments, and it was obvious to Cade that the two of them were old friends. It was impossible to stay frustrated during the chaos.

On the final day, Optimus presented himself for his upgrades. For once Anna didn't join Cade in the bay as he watched them work, fascinated as they spent an afternoon implanting several small devices in Optimus Prime's head–as many times as he'd worked on Optimus after battles, he'd never gotten a chance to see the workings in there. Wheeljack, used to the constant stream of questions that had been the accompaniment of their work for the last several days, merely tuned Cade out, but Optimus soon had enough and kicked him out. "The last thing I need is to have my brains scrambled because you distracted these two," Optimus growled.

He ran into Anna just outside the repair bay. "How's he doing? I can't stand to watch… well, metaphorically speaking."

"The procedure seems to be going smoothly, although it's a little creepy to have see the patient talking away during brain surgery," he replied, wondering how Optimus would've reacted to her singing. "He's grilling them on your Autobot's safety features. No matter what they tell him, he keeps grumbling about it not being safe enough."

She laughed and shook her head. "Of course he is. It could be proven to be 99.9% safe and he'd still grumble. If he thought he could get away with it, he'd wrap me in cotton and lock me away, especially now."

"But it  _hasn't_  been proven safe. Wheeljack told me that a malfunction could leave you a vegetable, an empty shell, and there would be no way to reverse it. Are you sure it's worth the risk?" Cade asked before he could stop himself.

Anna hesitated a moment before answering, and it was all he could do not to squirm under her blank stare. Despite knowing she couldn't really see him as anything but a vague dark shape, it was impossible to shake the feeling that she was examining him and sizing him up before deciding how to answer.

Finally she gave a little shrug. "Yes, I am," she said simply. "I've told Optimus a lot of things about wanting to be helpful and to regain my vision, and that's true enough as far as it goes, but the real truth is I would give anything just for the chance to be like him."

Cade didn't know how to reply to that, but she seemed to realize what he was thinking despite his silence.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

He felt his ears heat. In all the time they'd spent together over the last few days, they'd never broached this subject. "No, of course not!" he lied quickly.

She laughed again and dismissed that with a wave of her hand. "Of course you do, and why wouldn't you? I think I'm a bit crazy myself. A thousand times over the last few years I've told myself that I'm being an idiot, that I should forget all about Autobots and Decepticons, just find a man and move on with my life."

"Why didn't you?" Again, the question was out before he could stop it.

"I just couldn't," she said with a little sigh. "It  _is_  crazy. I'm human, and he's not. I can't even give him a hug. He doesn't see the point of a kiss. There's so little we have in common when you look at it, but still…" She sighed again and spread her hands. "I can't explain it. Love just happened to me, and somehow, it happened to him too. We don't have to have the same form to share the same feeling. All we can do is make the best of it and share whatever we can."

"Is… is it enough?"

She shrugged again. "Have you ever heard of an Autobot named Seaspray?"

Cade frowned, wondering if she was changing the subject, if he'd asked too much. "No, I haven't heard of him."

"Well, he was one of the original group of Autobots who came to Earth with Optimus. He was fascinated by humans from the instant he landed and he questioned me endlessly, wanting to know everything about everything." She smiled with the memory. "He was like a child–every other word was why, why, why."

He sounded like Bumblebee. "What happened to him?"

"He, along with Bumblebee and Cosmos, responded to an off-world SOS beacon. When they arrived, they found a race of people who'd been subjugated by Decepticons. They could also transform with the help of a special pool that triggered their change, but which destroyed any robot drones who tried to enter it. Seaspray fell in love with one of their warriors, Alanna, but knew there could be no future for them because they were so different." She smiled again. "He risked his very existence to jump into that pool, to find out if he could become like her."

Cade could tell where this was heading. "Let me guess–he survived, right?"

"Of course he did. The pool exposed the soul and gave it a new body, and there's more to an Autobot than gears and electrodes," Anna replied. "The soulless drones never had a chance, but Seaspray emerged from the pool in a new form, one that would let him have a future with Alanna."

"And that's why I never knew him," Cade realized aloud. "He stayed with her, right? Happily ever after."

"Oh, I can't guarantee happily ever after, but I can tell you that Seaspray was ecstatic, and although we were sad to lose him, we were all happy for him." She smiled and even though he knew she wasn't looking at him, her gaze seemed to pierce him just the same. "I've never forgotten Seaspray. Love is worth taking chances, Cade. Can you blame me for my willingness to take a risk to be like Optimus, to become an Autobot even if it's just for a little while?"

He was spared from finding something to say to this by the repair bay doors opening. Anna turned toward the sound. "Who is it? Is the procedure finished? Is Optimus all right?"

"Yes, Anna, I'm fine," Prime replied, already kneeling to offer his hand to her. "Complete with extra machinery in my head to knock you out thanks to Wheeljack and Skyfire." There was no mistaking the displeasure in his voice as he lifted her to his shoulder.

"Oh, stop whining," she teased, settling into position on his shoulder where Cade was already becoming used to seeing her, but she was clearly relieved. "We'll all be glad you have it if I go nuts and start tearing things apart."

"I don't whine." Optimus's voice was extra-restrained and Cade couldn't hold back a laugh. "And you," he added, pointing down at Cade, "don't encourage her."

.

The next morning, Cade joined the rest of the Autobots in the now-crowded repair bay for Anna's attempt to transfer her mind and personality into the robotic body. Optimus hovered between the two tables, one holding the prone Autobot, while Anna sat near the cortical mapping mechanism on the other. Wheeljack, Ratchet, Skyfire and Perceptor were all fussing with wires and control panels on the transfer array, and every time Optimus glanced at them, Cade could practically see his tension mounting.

Anna, however, was all but bouncing with excitement. "This is so cool," she said, grinning broadly not-quite in Prime's direction. "Relax, Optimus, before your oil pressure goes critical. Think positive, will you? In just a few minutes, I'm going to open my eyes and actually see!"

"Remember, things will likely look and feel strange to you at first," Wheeljack cautioned as he and Perceptor ran the final last-minute checks on the large machine he'd created between the two tables. "You'll probably feel like it's one of your 3D movies."

"Yes. Expect some disorientation," Perceptor added. "Don't try to get up until we give you the all-clear. Even then, you should move slowly until you adjust to your new size and senses."

She gave them a thumbs-up to acknowledge she'd heard, but all her attention was clearly still focused on Optimus. "It's going to be fine," she repeated for what had to be the thousandth time, her smile brilliant on her still-bruised face. "You'll see. I've been over all of it in my head and I can't think of anything that's been missed."

"I'd feel better if you'd been able to read the plans," Optimus replied as he knelt beside the table to bring his face within an arm's length of hers. Up close, she was able to make out the blue glow of his eyes and could focus on the light.

She adjusted her gaze accordingly and winked at him. "You'd feel better if I stayed hidden away at base for the rest of forever, too."

He returned her smile, but Cade thought it looked weak. "I don't deny it."

"Once I make the switch, I'll be able to look at the schematics myself," she said softly. "But I wouldn't take this risk if I wasn't perfectly confident that it's going to work. Besides, Skyfire says there's considerable research to indicate that giving my brain a rest this way might help to restore my vision, too. There's a reason why people with brain injuries are put into medically induced comas."

Skyfire and Wheeljack murmured briefly, punched a few buttons, then nodded. "All right, we're all set and powered up," Wheeljack announced. "Anna, whenever you're ready, we can proceed."

Cade saw Optimus close his eyes briefly and wondered what thoughts were going through that giant mind. Then he opened them and leaned even closer to Anna. "I'll be right beside you when you wake up," he promised, and with one more look into her eyes, he moved back.

Anna lay down inside the transducer machine and closed her eyes. Bumblebee played a clip from "See You On The Other Side" and she laughed, and that triggered the other Autobots to call well-wishes and encouragement to her as the machine started to buzz. She gave them all a wave before going still.

Cade bit his lip as the cortical mapper buzzed and blinked. She looked tiny inside the machine, bringing home to him how fragile humans really were when compared to the Autobots. Optimus stared fixedly at the silent Autobot on the next table as though willing it to move.

Suddenly, much sooner than Cade had expected, the Autobot shuddered. Its eyes, dark until now, suddenly glowed a vibrant blue. Optimus was there immediately, leaning over it–no,  _her_ –and gripping the table hard. "Anna? Anna, can you hear me?"

The glowing eyes swiveled and then gazed up at Optimus. A smile curved the metal lips. "Hey, big guy," Anna said, her voice perfectly recognizable even if slightly metallic from the change of bodies. "You have no idea how good it is to see you."

Optimus slumped against the table with relief. For a moment his lips moved without any sound emerging before he managed to say, "It's pretty damn good to see you too."

Bee clapped, playing the sound of a cheering crowd. " _The future's all yours, ya lousy bicycle,"_  he added.

"Who are you calling a bicycle, you old junker?" she shot back, and Wheeljack interrupted them with a stern, "Quiet down, let's focus, please."

Skyfire hovered over the machine holding her now-still body. "Readings are green across the board here. Vital signs within normal parameters, all levels are good. She's entered a stable stasis link with the Autobot."

Ratchet moved to the head of the other table and punched some buttons on the computer console there. "All mechanical systems nominal," he said, continuing to type. "Readouts show you as fully functional, Anna. How do you feel?"

She moved her head from side to side, then wiggled her fingers. "Hard to tell yet," she replied as she shifted a little on the table. "I think I'm cold, but I'm not really sure… if I am, it's not uncomfortable. You weren't kidding when you said this would feel weird!"

"Do you want to try and sit up?" Wheeljack asked, leaving Skyfire to stand beside Ratchet and look over his shoulder.

She nodded and Optimus offered his hand to help her up. When she sat straight, neither of them let go. "Wow," she whispered, staring at Prime. "That's almost overwhelming."

"What's overwhelming?" Ratchet asked sharply as Hound and Ironhide immediately stepped closer. They had tried to make their position flanking the table look casual, but they had witnessed both the Dinobots' awakening attack and Spike's insanity firsthand. No one had questioned their caution. "What are you feeling, Anna?"

She shook her head. "No, guys, I'm fine. It's just kind of mind-blowing, but in a really good way." Then she looked down at her and Prime's linked hands–the first time her gaze had left his face for more than an instant this whole time, Cade realized. She lifted his hand in both of hers and opened his fingers. "It's just that I usually sit right here," she murmured, pressing a fingertip to his palm before meeting his gaze again. "And now I'm eye-to-eye with you."

At that, Optimus finally smiled. "Mind-blowing indeed," he agreed. "But I could get used to it."

Bumblebee cranked up his radio at that. " _She's a brick… house! She's mighty mighty…_ " Anna laughed as Wheeljack shushed him again.

"Are you feeling any aggressive urges?" Ratchet asked as he waved a scanner over her head. "Confusion or emotions you can't explain or place?"

"No, nothing," she replied after a moment's thought. "I feel a little off-balance, though, like I might fall over. Not dizzy, just… unbalanced."

"Swing your legs over the side," Cade suggested as Optimus braced his free arm behind her back to stabilize her.

One of her legs twitched but almost instantly fell still with a grinding of gears, and the other didn't move at all. Anna snorted as she looked at her legs. "Well, so much for fully functional. But at least now I can see the blueprints and help figure out how to fix this."

"Before we do anything else, we should make sure the kill-switch works," Perceptor interrupted.

"Already?" Anna asked, losing her smile.

"I'm afraid it's for the best," Ratchet said apologetically. "The Dinobots were fine for several minutes before they were overcome by the destructive urges, too." Anna reluctantly nodded and Ratchet turned to Optimus. "All right, Prime, hit the kill-switch."

Optimus grimaced at him. "Must you call it that?"

"Oh, don't be a baby," Anna teased, staring hard at Optimus's face as though trying to memorize it–and she probably was, Cade thought, because she wouldn't be seeing it again once they sent her back to her own body. But despite that, she found one more smile for Prime. "Flip the switch and let's see what happens." His frown deepened at her cavalier attitude, but he must've complied because Anna's Autobot form suddenly slumped lifelessly forward.

There was no delay like there had been when she'd been transferred into the Autobot. Her human body jerked convulsively on the table and she screamed, hands and heels drumming against the metal. Optimus spun around so fast that her deactivated Autobot would've hit the floor if Ironhide hadn't leapt forward and caught it. "What happened? Are you hurt?" he demanded, leaning over the much smaller table. "Anna! Speak to us!"

"Oh, God, please stop yelling," she groaned. She reached up to cradle her head in her arms. "Okay, the kill-switch works, and let's never do that again. Jesus, that's just rude."

"Are you all right?"

The question came from Cade, Wheeljack, Optimus, Skyfire, Perceptor, and Ironhide all at once, and she actually giggled before groaning again.

"Yes, if getting body-slammed back into the middle of a cluster migraine is fine, I'm perfect. God." She rubbed her head and curled into a ball with a moan of misery. "For pity's sake put me back, Wheeljack. The Autobot doesn't have a headache!"

"Wish I could," Wheeljack said with a shake of his head, "but we agreed on the safety limitations. One transfer per day. We'll do it again tomorrow, and in the meantime the rest of us can fix your legs."

"You suck."

Cade almost laughed, but Optimus still looked so tense that he was afraid of getting squashed if he dared to show any amusement at all. "Can we get you anything?" he offered, thinking of the super-sized bottle of Tylenol he'd bought her.

She shook her head, moving gingerly into a sitting position and still wincing. Optimus knelt beside the table and leaned close again so she could see his eyes. "Are you positive you're all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she reassured him, but her ever-present smile was missing as she reached out. He curled his fingers around her in the closest thing he could give her to a hug. "It was too short," she whispered as she leaned into his palm, right where she'd pressed a single fingertip only minutes ago. "I wanted more time."

"Tomorrow," Optimus replied quietly. "Tomorrow we'll try again."

She nodded but still looked dejected. Cade remembered the things she'd said yesterday about being with Optimus and couldn't blame her. She'd been so excited about this, so eager, and she'd spent barely three minutes in her new body.

"Looks like the prototype had a short leading from the primary motivator," Ratchet said, bent over the deactivated robot. He glanced up, saw the look on her face, and tried to cheer her up. "Won't be any problem to fix, just a bad bit of wiring. Tomorrow should go much better, Anna. Provided you feel all right in there, we should be able to get you up and walking."

"But right now you should lie back down," Skyfire said with a little frown. "I want to run some brain scans to make sure your headache is just a headache and not damage from the procedure."

"Oh, goody, and you said that in front of Optimus, too," Anna groused, but she lay back on the table right away–part of their deal which Prime had frequently reminded her was that she was to comply with any and all medical procedures to ensure her health. "Keep doing crap like that and he's going to explode and it'll be on your head."

"Sorry, Anna," Skyfire said, but he was smiling because she was so very right. Optimus looked like his oil pressure had risen twenty points at just the thought of brain damage. "I'll get Ratchet to do a full physical on Prime next, how about that?"

It only took a few minutes for the enormous scientist to pronounce that Anna's brain had suffered no complications from the transfer. Even so, she was visibly exhausted by the time he was finished with his scans and reflex tests. Optimus took her back to his room then so she could rest, but surprisingly, he didn't stay with her. He returned to the lab and hovered over every soldered wire, every scanned circuit, every modified connection, and he questioned every move they made.

"Prime, I assure you that we do know what we are doing," Perceptor finally said after an hour of this. "The issue with her legs was a simple mechanical malfunction, not a design flaw. You can trust us."

Optimus looked surprised at this. "My apologies to you all I seemed to have a lack of faith," he said. "That was not my intention. I am merely storing up information for the thousands of questions Anna will surely have when she awakens. I have already been informed that one of us should have given her a mirror or a monitor to see what she looked like, and I'm certain that is only the first thing she'll be curious about." He paused for a moment, then added with a smile, "I have been informed that we will all be at risk of severe bodily harm if she is pink."

The medical team visibly relaxed. "Good thing we didn't take your suggestion," Ratchet said to Skyfire, who looked offended.

"Why didn't any of us think to show her what she looks like?" Wheeljack asked, smacking his forehead with a clang.

"Because none of you are female," replied a new voice. They all turned to see Tessa walk into the medical bay, her wide-eyed gaze taking in every detail of Anna's deactivated Transformer. "How come I leave for a week and you build a whole new Autobot without me? What else did I miss?"

"Oh, so, so much." Cade crossed to her side and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. "You're going to want to get comfortable for this," he said, leading her back toward the living area. "This is going to take some explaining."


	6. Alias

To Cade's surprise, Tessa had no trouble whatsoever accepting Optimus and Anna's unorthodox love story. "What? It's just like internet dating," she said, shrugging at his shock. "My friend Kate had an internet boyfriend for two years and they never even met in person. People fall in love with their minds, not just their bodies."

Cade sat back and crossed his arms. "I'm more worried about what the Decepticons did to her while she was a prisoner than trying to figure out how she and Optimus got together, honestly," he said, frowning. "It seems like no one's talking about that. Getting kidnapped and tortured is pretty terrible. She's acting like she's fine, but I promise you, she's not fine. She needs to talk to someone, get some counseling or something. You don't just wake up perfectly normal from getting beaten so badly you go blind."

"You're right," Tessa agreed with a worried look. "But it's not like she can just go to any old therapist. This sounds like some seriously classified Autobot/Decepticon stuff." Then she smiled at her dad. "Introduce me to her. Girls talk. Maybe she'll talk to me."

Cade smiled at her. "You're pretty damn amazing, have I told you that lately?"

She grinned back. "Yes, but don't let that stop you from telling me again."

The next morning, Cade and Tessa entered the communal kitchen–an area initially created to accommodate the Autobots' human guests but that had become something of a hang-out area for the bots, too–to find that Anna and Optimus were already there. Optimus stood to the side, arms crossed, while Anna stood a little way away with Skyfire and Perceptor. Skyfire looked harassed but Perceptor and Anna talked animatedly, smiling.

"She's nagging them to try the transfer again now instead of waiting the full twenty-four hours," Prime said when Cade and Tessa greeted him. "Perceptor is on her side, but Ratchet is against it. She's working on Skyfire for the tiebreaker now because Wheeljack is hiding from her."

"Smart Autobot. Is she winning the argument?" Cade asked even though he already had an idea from the disgruntled look on Prime's face.

"Of course she is," he grumbled. "She always does."

Cade patted the enormous Autobot's foot sympathetically. "As a once-married man, all I can say is just learn to give in, Optimus. We've got a saying here on Earth. Happy wife, happy life." Optimus just gave a resigned groan and Tessa laughed at both of them.

Anna turned at the sound. "Was that another woman I heard?"

"Yes, it certainly was," Tessa answered, still smiling, and started to walk over.

"Oh blessed day! Some reinforcements in this sea of masculinity!" Anna stuck out her hand and Tessa shook it. "I'm Anna Elias and I am very pleased to meet you."

"Tessa Yaeger," she replied. "I understand you know my dad, Cade."

"Oh, yes. He and Bee are my saviors."

Tessa sent Cade a wink over her shoulder. "He does have his moments of heroism," she teased. "How about we get out of here for some girl talk?"

"Yes, please, take her away!" Optimus called from across the room. "She's harassing my scientists and distracting them from their duties!"

Anna stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry in his general direction. "You mean I'm convincing them that it's perfectly safe to try the link again after twenty-one hours instead of twenty-four."

"That's what I said. You're distracting them from their duty not to give you everything you want."

"I think you'll be paying for that one later, Optimus," Tessa laughed as she linked her arm with Anna's and started walking toward the exit. "Come on, let's leave these losers behind. I'm so happy not to be the only female around here anymore. Am I right to assume you're staying for a while?"

"Definitely," Anna replied as they reached the door. "I did the staying-away thing and it was completely not worth it."

Cade and Optimus watched them go. "She and Tessa are going to be a terrible duo, I can just feel it," Cade remarked, lowering his voice as the others crowded around the vidscreen to watch some kind of cross-country car race. Even though they didn't seem to be paying them any attention, he spoke quietly. "She seems like she's recovering pretty well."

"She does seem to be," Optimus agreed in an equally quiet tone, staring at the doorway after the two women. "But I am not so sure. She will not discuss what happened to her. It worries me that she will not tell me anything about her captivity."

Cade leaned against the wall. "Tessa and I actually spoke about that yesterday," he admitted. "I think she's planning to try to get her to open up about it."

"Why would she tell a stranger and not me?" Optimus asked, and despite a clear effort to hide it, Cade heard the pain in his voice.

"Honestly, I don't know," he replied. "Tessa says that women can bond really fast and talk about the most personal things almost right away. It doesn't make sense to me, but then again, women in general don't often make sense to me, so she's probably right." Then, carefully not looking at Prime, he added, "She might also be trying to protect you."

The giant Autobot growled. "Protect  _me?_ " Skyfire and Hound glanced back at them and Optimus waved them away, lowering his voice again. "That is not her job! What could she possibly want to protect me from?"

"Well, let's face it, you were pretty pissed off when she got here," Cade said with a shrug. "Don't get me wrong, I completely understand–I'd have reacted the same way had anyone hurt Emily or Tessa like that. Maybe she just doesn't want to upset you like that again. I mean, what the hell, dude–you kicked  _Skyfire's_  ass! Have you  _noticed_  that he's nearly twice your size?"

Optimus shifted his feet, clearly a little embarrassed. "He was in my way," he said after a moment.

"Yeah." Cade hid his smile. "Nothing and no one was going to keep you away from her. I know the feeling."

"Then you also know that nothing and no one will keep me from delivering retribution to the ones who harmed her."

Prime's low growl sent a shiver down Cade's spine. "Any help I can offer is yours, you know," he said. "I've only just met Anna and I can't say I know her very well, but she seems like a great person and she didn't deserve what they did to her."

"Thank you, Cade," Optimus said solemnly. "Your friendship honors us." Then his tone darkened. "And I vow by all I hold dear that Megatron will pay in blood for this."

Surprisingly, Anna and Tessa returned less than an hour later. Cade caught Tessa's eye but she just shrugged and shook her head. "Looks like Tessa's mission failed," he murmured to Optimus. "I don't think she talked."

Optimus frowned but couldn't reply before the pair had reached them. Anna smiled up at where she thought he probably was and he automatically put his hand down for her. "It's been almost twenty-three hours," she said as she climbed up.

"Amazing how that number still isn't twenty-four," Optimus replied.

"Hey, you said you were going to eat something, not start nagging Optimus again," Tessa protested.

Anna grinned. "Yeah. I lied. So about my Autobot–"

"But seriously, did you eat any breakfast? Nobody had cooked when we got here, so…" Cade asked before Optimus could reply, because it looked like whatever the Autobot was planning on saying could only start an argument. She shrugged and Cade frowned. "Okay, I know it's bad form to comment on a lady's appearance, but you're awfully pale and thin, Anna. You really need to eat."

"Just because you're getting a new Autobot body doesn't mean you don't need to take care of this one," Ratchet chimed in, joining them. "You were awfully wiped out after yesterday. If you are too physically weak to handle the transfer, we will have to put the project on hold until–"

"Okay, okay, fine! I'll eat," Anna cut him off, holding up her hands in surrender.

Cade headed for the fridge and stove on the other side of the big room, Tessa on his heels, while the sounds of Anna and Ratchet arguing followed them. Once he felt they were out of earshot, he glanced over at his daughter. "No luck getting her to open up?" he asked quietly.

Tessa shook her head. "The instant I brought it up, she just completely shut down," she said, taking a dozen eggs out of his hand and grabbing some cheese. "Dad, I'm worried about her. Not talking and now not eating? It's not good."

"I know," he said. Allowing her to take over the cooking–Lord knew she was better at it than he was–he leaned a hip against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll talk to Optimus next time I catch him by himself. I mean, I know he's aware of the problem, but maybe he can… I don't know, do something for her."

Tessa just nodded and set him to work chopping green onions and tomatoes. "Someone needs to," she said.

Twenty minutes later, they returned, hands full, to Optimus and Anna. She was no longer on his hand but sat against the wall, knees drawn up, while the rest of the Autobots talked. Cade knelt down beside her. "Hey," he said, his tone very gentle–she looked more fragile now than she had even a few minutes ago. "Tessa made omelets. She's a much better cook than me so they even taste good. I cut yours in half and made a couple sandwiches with toast," he added. "Thought it might be, you know, easier that way."

She smiled at him and reached out for the plate. "Thanks," she said.

"Please eat as much as you can," Ratchet told her, looking down with a concerned expression she couldn't see. "We're hoping you can spend several hours in your Autobot today and it wouldn't be good to let your blood sugar get too low while you're away."

It was the perfect carrot to dangle before her. Anna nodded once and set about clearing her plate with a will. She demolished both sandwiches in a surprisingly short amount of time and Cade, having already finished his own food, took her plate back to the sink.

"You know, we should come up with something to call your Autobot besides  _Anna_  or  _your Autobot,"_  Tessa mused as she picked at the last few bites of her own breakfast. "It would sort of defeat the purpose of you hiding out here if the Decepticons got word of a brand new Autobot going by your name."

"Good point," Ratchet said. He tapped his chin. "Do you have any preferences, Anna? How about you, Prime?"

Optimus  _hmm_ ed thoughtfully. "You have always presented new Autobots to me already-named," he said. "Coming up with names isn't something I've ever considered."

"I really haven't thought about it either," Anna agreed. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

Perceptor came over. "Our names are usually based on our alt-forms, or sometimes on our function. For instance, I was named Perceptor because I was built to be a scientist and observer, while Ironhide was so named because of the thick armor bestowed on him as a warrior," he mused. "You are an inventor, so I suppose we could think of–"

"How about Alias?"

They all turned to look at Cade. He finished drying the last plate and turned around. "You said Transformers are often named something that indicates their function, right? And that's exactly what this Autobot is," he said, looking from one to the other. "Her alias–a new identity that won't be recognized. Besides, Anna, your last name is Elias. Switch your initials around and you get–"

"Alias!" Anna said, grinning. "I like it, Cade! Even better, it's close enough to my name that I could answer to that without much trouble. What do you think, Optimus?"

"If you are happy with it, that's what matters. It's your name, after all," Optimus replied, smiling down at her. "Alias it is."

"Fantastic," Anna said happily. "And speaking of Alias, is it time to go back yet? Come on, Optimus, I'm  _fine._  We agreed to one link per day, not to a carved-in-stone twenty-four hour time frame."

Ratchet, Skyfire, and Prime exchanged a look before Skyfire spread his hands and shrugged. Optimus sighed. "All right," he said reluctantly. "We will attempt the transfer again early. Happy now?"

"Very!" This time, the smile she sent him was bright and genuine, banishing the shadows in her eyes entirely. "Pick me up, come on, let's go!"


	7. Roll Out

There were more Autobots in the lab this time to witness the experiment. With Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Skyfire, Wheeljack, Perceptor, Ironhide, Drift, Hound, Crosshairs, and the two humans in there, the lab was crammed full. The procedure of transferring Anna's consciousness into Alias went smoothly again, and this time when Optimus helped her to sit up, she was able to swing her legs over the side without difficulty. Cade and Tessa stood a little way back, watching how Optimus once again didn't release her hand and that she didn't look away from his face until he pointed out the screen that showed her.

"Look, you're not pink," Prime said, smiling.

They'd done a really good job of making Alias look like Anna, Cade thought. He was always surprised at how expressive those metal faces were and right now hers showed unmistakable joy and wonder as she studied every inch of herself. Alias was clearly an Autobot who hadn't yet scanned an alt-mode, but the lack of recognizably human-made parts gave her an sleek, dangerous look. Slimmer than the other Autobots, her body shape was clearly feminine without looking the slightest bit weak. Even without any weapons, Alias looked like she could do some damage. It helped that they hadn't painted her, choosing to leave the flat, dark grey metal as it was until she decided on her final details.

In fact, the only color on her came from the blue glow of her eyes and the red Autobot symbol on her right shoulder in exactly the same place as her tattoo.

"Oh, this is way better than pink," Anna–no, Alias–replied happily, still staring transfixed at the screen. "You all get to live."

"I'm so damn jealous right now," Cade sighed. "That thing is ninja-level badass. What do I have to do to get one of my own?"

"I think you have to hook up with a Prime," Tessa murmured, grinning at the way Optimus ignored the screen in favor of watching her face as Alias exclaimed in delight over her new body. For all the attention he paid the hovering scientists, they might've been invisible. "Just look at him. He's got it so bad. I have a feeling that if they were alone in here…"

"I seriously need you to never finish that sentence. There are some things my imagination can't handle," Cade interrupted, mock-shuddering, but he was smiling too. He had seen Optimus in all kinds of moods–angry, laughing, frustrated, mellow–but the care and deep tenderness he showed for Anna was something new. "Love looks pretty good on him."

"You old romantic," Tessa teased him, and he couldn't deny it.

"Okay, Prime, why don't you take a step back so I can finish the diagnostic?" Ratchet prompted after a couple of tries at getting between them. "I need to check her reflexes before we try to get her up on her feet."

"Oh–yes, of course," Optimus said. He backed away, finally dropping Alias' hand. Cade caught Ironhide's hastily-hidden grin and shot him a wink. Apparently the rest of the Autobots were enjoying seeing this side of their leader as much as he was.

Soon Ratchet pronounced Alias fully functional. "How do you feel in there?" Perceptor asked, scanning three different screens. "Ready to try a few steps?"

Alias looked at Wheeljack for the first time–she hadn't been able to tear her gaze from Prime or the screen this entire time. "Now? I can get up now?"

"You don't feel ready?" Skyfire asked, frowning at her hesitation.

"No, no, no, I feel totally ready," she said quickly. "You're just all so nervous that I don't want to blink the wrong way and get shut down."

Perceptor smiled reassuringly. "We're not going to shut you down for blinking, I promise. Go ahead and stand up if you're ready, and why don't you hold onto Optimus for support?" he suggested. It was clear that Optimus had been impatiently waiting for an excuse to take her hand again. In fact, Prime was reaching for her before Perceptor had even finished his sentence.

"That would be moral support," Hound murmured, not quite under his breath.

"Yeah, for Prime," Crosshairs agreed.

Prime ignored them, still completely focused on Alias. "Here goes nothing," she said, and scooted off the table. Standing to her full height for the first time, she grinned up at Optimus–he was about half a head taller than she was. "Damn. Would you look at that?"

"What?"

She laughed. "I'm just really freaking tall!"

Ratchet and Wheeljack converged on her, running still more tests–making her stand on each foot, lean this way and that, jump up and down, balance on her toes, then her heels, and more. The link was into its second hour before they finally ran out of things to have her do while standing still. Cade was starting to wonder how much of their caution was due to their prior failures and how much was overkill to soothe Optimus, but to her credit, Alias didn't protest any of it.

"Good, good," Perceptor finally murmured, checking off blocks on his handheld. "Good. We can move on to walking now."

"Are you certain you've checked me thoroughly enough?" she teased, saying exactly what Cade was thinking.

"Yeah, I think you missed examining her left earlobe," Cade said.

She snorted. "I don't think I  _have_  earlobes."

"But you don't know. Have you checked?"

"Enough, you two. We're taking this slow to ensure we that we eliminate all unnecessary risks," Optimus said. He backed up until he reached the far side of the lab, then put his hands on his hips. "Well, Alias, what are you waiting for?"

The thrilled look on her face at being called by her Autobot name for the first time was priceless. Still, after all the checks and double-checks and triple-checks, it was almost anticlimactic when she walked across the lab to Optimus with no trouble whatsoever. He took her hand again and smiled down at her. "Well done."

"Coordination and balance look fine," Wheeljack said. "How do you feel?"

"Like I'm under a microscope," Alias replied dryly. "I feel great, guys. I've been walking since I was a year old and it's not that difficult.  _Please_  calm down! I'm starting to get paranoid that you put a self-destruct on me or something!"

"It's probably in your left earlobe," Cade called.

Crosshairs grinned, clearly about to add some smartassery of his own, but Teletraan-1 interrupted with an alarm before he could. "Priority one transmission from Prowl," the computer stated as a wall-screen flashed to life, showing a map with a location marked with a flashing blue Autobot symbol that was labeled  _Prowl_. "Decepticon activity detected."

"Prowl, report," Optimus commanded, abruptly all-business.

"Two Decepticons spotted near Galena Park in South Houston." Prowl's voice played over the speakers as a glowing red Decepticon symbol popped up on the screen. "I'm staying out of scan-range so they won't know I've spotted them, but that also means I can't determine what they're up to. I can chase them off on my own but if you want them captured, I'll need some backup."

Prime's eyes narrowed. "Oh, I want them captured," he growled. His gaze snapped to Ironhide, Drift, and Hound. "You three, come with me. We're going to get some answers."

Alias' expression changed from happiness to fear within seconds. "Wait, you're going?" she asked, voice tight. "Why are you going?"

"Yes. I'm taking no chances that they might escape," Optimus told her. He rested his other hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry. You'll be fine here. Crosshairs and Bumblebee will remain here for security and this won't take long."

"It's not me I'm worried about," she said, but Optimus clearly wasn't about to change his mind.

He squeezed her shoulder and then looked over at Skyfire. "We'll need you too, in case they take to the air. Drift won't be able to keep up. Finish whatever you must do here as quickly as you can and we'll shut this down."

Wheeljack spoke up before she even had a chance to protest the shutdown. "Actually, Optimus, we're good to continue without Skyfire," he said, not even looking up from entering data on his handheld. "Ratchet or I can take over his duties, no problem. We designed the system for Teletraan to do most of the monitoring anyway now that we know it works safely. Technically, the only thing we'd truly need an Autobot here for would be an emergency shutdown scenario and even that's just a button-push, so…"

His voice trailed off as he finally looked up and saw Prime's face. It was pretty clear that allowing the experiment to go on without him wasn't what he'd had in mind. "That is, if you don't mind us continuing while you're away," he added awkwardly.

"Prime can't use the kill-switch if he's not here," Hound pointed out. Optimus looked grateful for the intervention. "And if she gets crazy while Ironhide and I are gone –"

"I'm great. Really, I'm perfect," Alias said quickly. "I feel totally calm. Nothing like that is going to happen." Prime didn't look completely convinced so she focused on him and pleaded, "I've been in the link well over an hour now and that doesn't even count yesterday's test. The rest of them were rampaging all up and down the countryside by this time. I'm  _fine,_  Optimus."

"I agree with her, Prime. If she was going to aggressively decompensate, it would have happened by now," Ratchet pointed out. "There will be at least five of us right beside her at all times and she still has no weapons. Besides, we designed the kill-switch to work up to fifty miles away. If the worst happens, I'm sure we can restrain her long enough to radio you to shut her down or get someone to hit that button."

"They won't have to restrain me," Alias said, gazing up at him hopefully. "Nothing bad is going to happen. Please, Optimus."

Prime closed his eyes briefly but Cade knew it was all over even before he sighed and nodded. No way could he say no to that face. "All right. Stay here and complete the rest of the testing," Optimus reluctantly agreed. "But if we are not back in two hours, I want you to shut down and await our return. Understood?" They all nodded, even Alias, and Prime finally released her and stepped back. "Crosshairs, you're in charge of security until we return. Autobots, let's roll out!"


	8. Alias Tackles a Problem

There was a long moment of silence after Optimus and his troops left. Cade finally cleared his throat. "Okay, so, something just occurred to me," he said, trying to break the tension. "Alias, you told me that first day that you're not familiar with Metroplex. How about a tour of the place so you can see where you live?"

"Good idea," Perceptor agreed at once, but Crosshairs was already shaking his head.

"No. Optimus said to stay here and we're staying right here," Crosshairs said firmly.

"Oh, come on, Crosshairs," Cade protested. "Showing her the base  _is_  staying here! It just makes sense to give her an idea of her surroundings. What if there was an emergency and we had to evacuate? She doesn't know where to go and if she's not linked into Alias, she wouldn't even be able to see the lights to follow. I mean, I think Optimus would want us to ensure her safety, but if you don't…"

"Now that's just completely unfair," Crosshairs protested. "I didn't say–"

"We also need to see how the link holds up at a distance and check her coordination as we move further from the transmitter," Ratchet cut in. "Those are pretty much the only diagnostics we haven't completed yet and we can't test either of those things in here–the lab isn't big enough."

"And Prime did say we should finish our testing," Wheeljack agreed. "I think it was probably an order, don't you?"

"First you ganged up on him and now you're ganging up on me. It's like this vast conspiracy to push the limits of what he approved," the weapons specialist grumbled. "You do know that it's my ass on the line if something goes wrong and she starts breaking everything, right? I don't want my gravestone to read  _Here lies the Autobot who tackled Prime's girlfriend._ "

"If I freak out and start breaking everything, do you really want me in here? What if I accidentally squish myself?" Alias asked, lifting one foot and pretending to kick over the table holding the link machine with her helpless human body inside.

Crosshairs groaned. "Fine, I give up! We'll take your damn tour," he said, throwing up his hands. "A  _short_  tour, mind you, and if something happens, I expect all of you–" he pointed at each of them in turn, "–to stop Prime from disassembling me."

Alias grinned widely. "Well, I'll certainly try."

He crossed his arms. "No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try," Crosshairs quoted as Bumblebee arrived.

"I thought Bee was the one who talks in movie quotes, Yoda," Cade laughed.

"Hey, I can talk if I want to," Bee said, but then he stopped dead and did an exaggerated double-take to see Alias up on her feet. He looked her up and down and broadcast a loud wolf-whistle. "Whoa, lookin' good, mama," he said approvingly, circling her and nodding appreciatively. "Lookin'  _real_  good. You ever get tired of Prime, gimme a call."

"Well, now, that made me feel better," Crosshairs remarked as Alias laughed and Ratchet slapped the young Autobot across the back of the head. "Prime's definitely gonna kill him before he comes after me."

They ended up in the common room where they'd had breakfast earlier. The Yeagers found themselves beside the door with Wheeljack and Crosshairs, watching Ratchet and Perceptor confer over their readings while Alias joined in an argument with Bee, Sideswipe, Smokescreen, and Hoist over what channel to watch on the enormous television. Despite the lively debate, the Autobots all seemed much more interested in staring at her than what was on the screen. "So as Autobots go, did you make her pretty?" Tessa asked Wheeljack as she watched the group around Alias.

"What, you can't tell?" Wheeljack said, clearly surprised.

Tessa hesitated. "Well, I think she looks amazing, but I'm not a robot and Optimus is just hard to read. I figured that Bee was kidding around in the lab, but now–" She waved a hand in their direction. "Everyone's acting kind of… you know, flustered."

Crosshairs laughed. "You try not seeing a member of your kind of the opposite sex for four million years, little girl. She could look like a toaster and they'd be  _kind of, you know, flustered_." Then he looked over at Alias and sighed. "But to answer your question, no, she's not pretty. She's freaking  _gorgeous_ , a complete knock-out. I'm not sure the build team did Prime any favors there," he added, shaking his head. "If you think Optimus is hard to read on this, you need your eyes checked. Poor guy is doomed."

Wheeljack laughed, obviously proud of his work. "Hey, would you want to be the one responsible for making her ugly?"

"I'm pretty sure Optimus was doomed no matter what they made her look like," Cade said, chuckling a little himself.

"Ain't that the truth," Crosshairs agreed. "He's done for _._ "

Tessa smirked up at the robots. "But you two don't seem flustered."

"That's because I have this little thing called  _self-preservation instinct,_ " Crosshairs replied dryly. "Those clowns might want to look into it before Prime gets back. It helps that my quarters are down that corridor Prime trashed when they tried to keep him away from her. There's a dent on my door that looks suspiciously like Ironhide's face." He crossed his arms. "Works wonders at banishing any  _flustered_  right out of my system, that does."

"And I'm not stupid," Wheeljack agreed. "I'm happy to enjoy the view without getting my ass kicked."

"What were Anna and Optimus like before?" Cade asked before his daughter could tease the Autobots further.

Crosshairs and Wheeljack exchanged a look, and then he shrugged. "Very close, but not in-your-face about it," he said. "Not like Powerglide and that girl of his."

Wheeljack shuddered. "Ugh, that whole thing was just  _wrong._ " When the humans looked up curiously, he shook his head. "Trust me, you are so much happier not knowing."

"Cherish your ignorance on the matter," Crosshairs agreed. "But Prime and Anna weren't like that. In the beginning, she was just our ally and a friend to Prime, but she mostly worked with the science team. Gradually we'd see her and Prime together more and more. Then it got to be odd to see him without her on his shoulder. I'm not sure when they moved to the more-than-friends stage and it's not my business, but the rest of us didn't catch a clue until the Decepticons nearly captured her."

"Not so," Wheeljack interrupted. "Perceptor knew. He knew months before that." He looked down at Cade. "They weren't hiding anything, is all I'm saying."

Crosshairs shrugged again. "Optimus went a little nuts when they almost got her and I don't mind telling you that when Optimus Prime really, truly loses his temper, well… it makes an impression. Regardless of when Perceptor figured it out, that was the first that most of us knew of how serious their relationship had become."

He leaned back, resting his shoulders against the doorframe. "And within a month of that battle, she was gone and we were forbidden to speak of her. It was not cheerful to be around Prime for quite a while after that. I think they were in contact occasionally, but nothing close to how it was when she lived here. Personally, I didn't expect her to stay gone as long as she did. I thought he'd call her back home within a week."

Having seen Prime with her, Cade couldn't imagine what it must've been like for him to send her away, even if it meant she'd be safer. Then he remembered Skyfire's reaction to Anna's arrival and seeing how much Optimus cared for her. "No one minded?"

Wheeljack looked at him oddly. "Not really. Why would we?"

"Well, she's a human," Cade explained.

Crosshairs made a face. "Oh, come on, Cade, we all knew Anna. It's not like she was some stranger out of nowhere come to lead our Prime astray or something equally ridiculous. Besides, xenophobia is much more of a Decepticon thing. Have you noticed any Autobots spouting any of that  _fleshling maggot_  crap Megatron is so fond of?"

"Well, you did try to shoot us as soon as you met us," Tessa pointed out.

Crosshairs chuckled at the memory. "I didn't actually pull the trigger. That doesn't count, but yeah, okay, point taken. Still, things were different then. Back when she lived here, your leaders weren't hunting us down for sport–they didn't even know we were on your planet yet. We could afford to be a bit more trusting. Besides, she saved Prime's life and that's not something we'll ever forget."

"Anna's been our friend since the beginning," Wheeljack said, nodding. "Prime wasn't the only one who cared about her. She was more than an ally–she's family."

"Autobots returning," Teletraan announced over the loudspeaker. "Ratchet, report to the secure repair bay immediately."

All the Autobots, Alias included, stopped what they were doing and looked up at the announcement. "Who's injured?" Ratchet demanded, already transforming.

"All Autobots are uninjured," Teletraan reported. "One captive is in need of medical attention."

Crosshairs grinned viciously and rubbed his hands together as Ratchet sped out of the room. "That didn't take long. Hope that means they killed the other one."

"Wouldn't be surprised," Cade agreed. "Prime was pissed."

Wheeljack and Perceptor turned to Alias. "We should probably shut down now," Perceptor said apologetically. "Ratchet may need an extra set of hands for this and while we planned to eventually run the link automatically, we're not ready yet and I don't want to push the timetable unless we really have to. Besides, we're only about half an hour away from the time limit Prime set."

Alias sighed but nodded and started walking toward the door. "If you're sure."

"Who did they capture?" Sideswipe asked Teletraan.

"Captive is Starscream," the computer replied, and Crosshairs whooped.

"Fantastic. I've wanted to get my hands on that bastard for ages," he said gleefully.

Alias stumbled mid-step and rocked on her feet. Wheeljack looked at her in concern. "Are you all right?"

She didn't answer him. Her hands started shaking. There was a sudden metallic groan as Alias' body shuddered from head to toe–to Cade, it looked like every single part had twitched half an inch before slamming back into place. "What the hell was that?" Cade said as Crosshairs swept him and Tessa back behind him.

"She tried to transform," Crosshairs answered worriedly.

"But she doesn't have a cog yet," Wheeljack added. "Stay back, both of you."

Perceptor reached for her but stopped just short of touching her as though not wanting to startle her. "Alias– _Anna_ –talk to us. What's going on?"

Bee and Crosshairs moved cautiously closer to her when she didn't reply. Her trembling worsened. "Come on, now, I really was serious about not wanting to tackle you," Crosshairs said warily. "Tell the nice scientists what's the matter."

Perceptor shook his head when she remained silent. "Something's wrong. This isn't like what happened with the other experiments. We need to get her back to the lab and–"

Wheeljack's handheld module beeped. "Adrenaline surge detected!" he called. "Heart rate, respirations, blood pressure–everything's spiking."

"Get to the lab and shut her down immediately!" Perceptor shouted.

Those words broke Alias' paralysis and she abruptly burst into motion, plowing through the narrow space between Crosshairs and Wheeljack and sending them stumbling. Before they could do more than stagger back upright, she had already sprinted out of the room. "Catch her!" Wheeljack cried.

Crosshairs cursed as he leapt to his feet. "Prime's gonna kill me so dead," he groaned, racing after her.

.

Optimus and Ironhide dragged a heavily-damaged Starscream toward the repair bay between them. The captive Decepticon was still struggling despite the unbreakable grip the two Autobots had on him–and even if he somehow managed to wriggle away from them, Skyfire and Drift were only two steps behind. "Be still," Optimus commanded, tightening his hold still-further on the Decepticon's half-destroyed arm. "You're going nowhere."

Starscream thrashed and kicked at Prime's legs in an attempt to trip him up. "Let me go, you imbecile! When I get out of this, you will pay for your treatment of me!"

"Kick me again and I will remove your legs," Optimus growled. "The only part of you that I require to be functional right now is your mouth. Give me a reason to send you back to Megatron in pieces, I beg you."

"Doesn't even have to be a good reason," Ironhide added from his other side.

Starscream stopped struggling. "You wouldn't," he sneered, but he sounded unsettled now. "The mighty Optimus Prime is far too noble to stoop to torturing a prisoner."

Prime's grip on his wounded arm tightened until Starscream cried out again. "You have no idea what I would do to you right now."

Ratchet arrived in the repair bay seconds before Prime and Ironhide dragged their prisoner inside. "Secure him here, Prime," he said, tilting up the largest of his repair tables as Drift and Skyfire filed in behind them. "I'll ensure he's stable enough to answer your–"

But before he could finish, an Autobot burst through the door and leapt at Starscream, shrieking in rage. The force of the unexpected impact knocked Ironhide right off his feet, breaking his grip on the prisoner. Optimus redoubled his hold on Starscream's arm to hold him. There was a screech of rending metal and a shower of sparks, and an instant later he fell back with the Decepticon's severed limb still in his hands while the rest of Starscream crashed face-down to the floor beneath his unexpected attacker.

And then Optimus realized just who had tackled Starscream. "Alias, NO!" he shouted.

"Get off! Get him off me!" the Decepticon screamed, desperately trying with his one remaining arm to fend off Alias' frenzied attack as she knelt on his back and slammed his face into the floor with all her might. He managed to flip over and they rolled, but Alias was still on top when they crashed into the wall. Starscream grabbed at her face, trying to shove her off, then shrieked when she bit down hard. There was an audible crunch and when he tore his hand away again, it was short a finger. " _Get him off me!"_

Alias spat the still-twitching digit right into his face.  _"I'll kill you!_ " she yelled, ignoring his attempts to throw her off. She grabbed him by the throat and slammed Starscream's head into the floor again and again. He kicked and punched at her but she clung to him like a limpet, groping at his face with hooked fingers.  _"Give me your eyes!"_

"Alias, stand  _down_!" Optimus boomed as he and Ironhide grabbed her by the arms before she could rip Starscream's optics out. "Stop this!"

But Alias wasn't listening. Fighting them just as hard as she'd fought Starscream, she landed a lucky blow on Optimus that was hard enough to make him momentarily lose his grip. She instantly lunged forward and clawed at Starscream's face again. An awful metal-on-metal screech filled the air when her fingers dug grooves down his forehead and cheek, barely missing his glowing red optics as he flung his hand over his face and desperately scrambled backward.  _"GET BACK HERE! I WANT YOUR EYES!"_

Optimus grabbed her around the waist and wrenched her bodily off the screaming Decepticon. "STAND DOWN!" he roared as she kicked wildly in an attempt to escape his hold. Drift and Hound dove onto Starscream before he could turn the chaos into an escape attempt. Skyfire finally managed to get close enough assist Optimus, who didn't protest when the enormous Autobot took Alias from his arms. Her struggles barely registered against his immense strength. Skyfire spun and took her out of the room without being told as soon as he had her in a secure grip, Optimus and Ironhide right on his heels.

Optimus caught Alias' head in both hands as soon as they were out of the Decepticon's sight. "Stop it, now!" he demanded, forcing her to look at him. The emergency shut-down had been so violent that he didn't want to use it again unless he had no other choice, so as long as she was contained, he was going to try to talk her down. "That's enough!"

" _Let me go!_  He needs to pay!" she screamed.

"He will," Prime promised darkly, "but not like this." When she continued to fight, Prime sent the tiniest flutter of power through the kill-switch in warning. "Don't make me do this, Anna," he gritted quietly when he saw that she felt it.

The fight abruptly went out of her. Alias went limp in Skyfire's hold, shaking from head to toe but no longer attempting to thrash her way free. Optimus glared at Crosshairs and Bee when they charged around the corner. "Skyfire, take her out of here–Ironhide, go with them. And as for you two," he growled at them over the sound of Starscream's continued hysterics, "rest assured that we  _will_  be discussing exactly how this happened."

"Yes, Prime," they said together with varying degrees of dread before Skyfire led them back toward Wheeljack's lab, Alias still held firmly in his grasp.

Optimus closed his eyes briefly before returning to the repair bay. Drift and Hound had already manhandled Starscream over to the table and were pinning him against it while Ratchet strapped him in securely. "Who the hell was that? He's insane!" Starscream was shouting to anyone who would listen as they finished binding him and tilted him upright. "He tore off my  _arm!_  He  _bit off_ my  _finger!_  Can't Prime control his Autobots?"

"That one? Good luck," Hound snorted, but he shut his mouth when he caught a glimpse of Prime's thunderous face.

"Who  _was_  that? He's feral!" Starscream demanded again.

Prime picked up the arm and finger and slammed both onto the next table, right where Starscream could see them. The Decepticon winced at the sight of his severed body parts. "I am not here to answer your questions. Ask me another and I will add another limb to the pile," he growled, enjoying that wince more than he knew he should. Starscream went immediately silent.

Optimus turned to his Autobots. "Ratchet, administer first aid only. Ensure his survival, nothing more. Hound, Drift, stay here. I will return to question him shortly."

"Understood, Prime," Ratchet replied as the Decepticon gaped silently at him. When Optimus was gone, he looked down at Starscream and shook his head slowly. "You know, I could almost feel sorry for you when he comes back."

"Autobots don't dismember their prisoners!" Starscream tried to scoff, but it came out scared instead of scathing. "He's bluffing!"

Hound patted his wounded shoulder and nodded toward the other table. "Yeah, you just keep on telling yourself that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's actually reading this, *please* review. Otherwise I'm going to abandon this because I think I'm posting into the void right now. Thanks.


	9. I've Got You

Optimus stormed toward Wheeljack's lab, fists tight with rage. How could they have let something like this happen? Knowing that Starscream hadn't gotten a good enough look at Alias to realize that she was no  _he_  was only a little comfort–he had never wanted her to be anywhere near the Decepticons ever again, and his Autobots had let her get close enough to actually attack Starscream!

He turned the final corner and his eyes narrowed when he saw Crosshairs and Ironhide waiting for him outside the lab. "Prime, wait–" Crosshairs said, holding up his hands.

"You are the last Autobot who should speak to me right now, Crosshairs," Prime cut him off.

"I know, you're right, but if you'll just wait one second–"

" _Get out of my way,"_  Optimus snarled, not even pausing his approach.

"Calm down and we will," Ironhide said, stepping in front of Crosshairs to block the door, and he didn't move even when Optimus got right up in his face.

"Why are you both out here instead of in there?" Prime demanded, finally forced to stop. He shot Crosshairs a furious glare when they still didn't move. "You have already failed to protect her once–"

"I promise you, she's absolutely safe," Crosshairs said quickly.

"She shut herself down, Prime," Ironhide confirmed. "All right? Now just calm down a little and we'll let you go in."

"I don't need you to  _let_  me go anywhere, Ironhide." Prime kept seeing Starscream throwing punches at Alias in an endless, terrible loop in his mind; kept hearing the rage and pain in her screams as she'd attacked him. It wasn't conducive to  _calming down_.

"Yeah, I know it well," Ironhide agreed. "And if you need to kick my ass again until you feel better, let's go. Just don't take this in there. I promise you, right now is not the time. You'll regret it. Unload on us, not her."

The idea that Ironhide thought he would vent his temper on Anna was enough to finally pierce Prime's haze of anger and worry. He stepped back and forced his emotions down until his face shield retracted–he hadn't even realized he was still in battle-mode until that moment. Optimus closed his eyes and forced the memory of Starscream laying hands on Alias out of his mind, refusing to allow it to return until he finally found his center again. Only then did he manage to process what they'd just told him. "You say that she shut herself down?"

Both of them nodded. "That wasn't the kind of thing that happened with the Dinobots or Spike. She  _knew_  the bastard," Crosshairs said, and Optimus finally realized that the worry on the Autobot's face was for Anna, not over whatever Optimus would do to him for this security lapse. "She was absolutely fine until Teletraan reported who you'd captured, and then she just… lost it."

"If she's not actually in shock right now, she's close," Ironhide added. "It's not good, Prime. Beat the hell out of Crosshairs later if you really have to, but right now, you need to be the calm one." And then he and Crosshairs finally stepped aside to let him through.

Optimus cautiously entered the lab to find Wheeljack, Perceptor, Bumblebee and Skyfire all gathered so tightly around the central tables that he couldn't see past them at all. Wheeljack was speaking too softly for him to make out the words, but the gentle, reassuring tone carried and Optimus could tell that he was trying to talk her down.

He could also tell that no matter what he said, Anna made no reply at all.

Bee looked up at the sound of the door opening and saw Prime. He nudged Perceptor and Skyfire and they all turned apprehensively to face him, letting him see past them for the first time. Alias was crouched on the floor right beside the link machine, completely still and obviously powered-down, but both tables were empty. Wheeljack knelt beside her even though he'd stopped talking with Prime's arrival. "Where is Anna?" Optimus asked when he had scanned the entire lab without locating her.

Bee cupped his hands together at chest-level as though carrying something, then pointed at Alias. Optimus studied the deactivated bot–she was curled in on herself with her arms tucked tightly to her chest, knees drawn up, and head bent down over them. Nothing of her face or hands could be seen at all. Optimus began to understand why Ironhide and Crosshairs had been so eager to ensure that he didn't come charging in.

"She went into that position as soon as I let her go," Skyfire told him, voice thick with concern. "Then she deactivated herself and crawled in there before we could stop her."

"She hasn't said a word," Wheeljack added worriedly. "We think she's in Alias' hands, but we don't dare try to take her out in case we're wrong."

Prime's chest ached. Anna was a fighter. If she was so upset that she'd gone to those lengths to hide, Ironhide was likely correct about her being near shock. "All right," he said heavily. "Everyone out."

"Prime, this wasn't because–" Perceptor began, but Optimus shook his head sharply.

" _Out,"_  he repeated, remembering when Anna had first awakened in his quarters, terrified and newly blind–she had only started to calm down once Cade had left and Optimus had assured her repeatedly that they were alone. "I'll take it from here."

His Autobots hesitated a moment more but finally nodded and walked toward the door while Optimus stared at Alias' locked-down position. Surely they had a way to safely unfold her so he could get Anna out in an emergency, right? At the last moment, he added, "Wheeljack, I may need you soon. Stay close."

"I'll be right outside," Wheeljack said.

When the door closed behind them, Optimus walked over to the table and knelt down beside Alias. Close examination revealed the tiny opening she'd left herself to crawl through, but even when he bent down and peered into it, he couldn't see her. He had to fight down a surge of renewed rage at Starscream for triggering this. "Anna, why are you hiding in there?" he asked as gently as he could.

For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse to answer him just as she had Wheeljack, but after the longest minute of his life, she finally said, "It wasn't their fault."

He frowned. "Whose fault?"

"Crosshairs and Bumblebee." Her voice was muffled, making him wonder just how much room she had in there. Did she have enough space to breathe? "Don't be angry at them."

Optimus moved a little closer and sat down beside the deactivated Autobot. "I'm not worried about them right now," he told her honestly. "I'm worried about you. No one is here but me, Anna. Will you come out of there?"

There was a sound like a stifled sob. "Not… not yet," she whispered. He could imagine her curled up inside Alias' hands in nearly the same position as the deactivated bot and closed his eyes for a moment. "I just want to be with her a little longer before she goes away."

"Where is she going?"

"Don't, Optimus," she said, and oh, she was definitely crying now, her words emerging wretched and hopeless. "Don't pretend this isn't the last time I'm going to see her. We both know I screwed up as badly as I possibly could! You told me yourself that you'd shut the project down if it threatened my safety, and I just–I just–" Her voice dissolved into sobs.

"I'm not shutting anything down until we talk about  _why_  it happened," he interrupted. He rested his hand on Alias' shoulder, careful not to jostle her. The longer he looked at the cowering, hunched-down position she'd left Alias in, the more it hurt, but he was afraid to try to uncurl her because of the potential of accidentally harming Anna. She was so small compared to Alias. "Anna, please come out. Let me hold you instead."

Anna didn't answer him. He listened to her crying for what felt like forever, at a complete loss for what to say. He bent to a different angle and tried again to catch a glimpse of her, but the bot was curled up too tight. Finally her sobs slowed to uneven, shaking breaths. "Anna, please," he murmured again. Knowing she was hurting so badly and being unable to even see her face was agony. "If you want to stay where you are, that's fine, but please, I need you to talk to me. Help me understand what happened today."

Finally, she took a deep, shuddering breath. "Starscream… when they took me… he was…" Her words ran together, froze, and then finally she whispered, "He… hurt me."

Optimus remembered her screaming  _I want his eyes!_  and knew he'd done far more than just hurting her–Starscream was responsible for her blindness. "He will pay for it," he said when he was certain his anger wouldn't show in his voice, but he silently swore that Starscream would suffer horribly for every single second of pain he'd inflicted on her. "If you want his eyes, Anna, I will give them to you." When she still didn't say anything, he tried again. "They will make a lovely necklace, especially if we string his finger right in the center."

That startled a laugh from her, and even if it was a bit shaky, it was real. "That would make a statement," she said, and Optimus slumped with relief to hear her dazed, devastated tone fade a little.

"Yes," he agreed. "Probably a statement that couldn't be spoken in polite company." But she didn't laugh again and Optimus suddenly remembered how hard she'd been shaking when Skyfire had dragged her away. She hadn't only been enraged. She'd been  _terrified._

And judging by the way Anna had crawled into the most protected place in her curled-up bot's hands and refused to come out, she still was.

He knew then that he'd made a mistake in bringing Starscream back for questioning. He hadn't thought it through, and in his thirst to discover who had hurt her, he'd inadvertently brought the trauma right into the center of the only safety she had now.

No wonder she'd lashed out.

Optimus sighed. As badly as he wanted to see her and hold her himself, it would clearly do more harm than good to have Wheeljack unfold Alias so he could take Anna out. She needed to feel secure again. Optimus abruptly made a decision. "Anna, would you feel safe enough to talk to me if we link you back in?" he asked.

There was a moment of startled silence. She still didn't come out but he caught a glimpse of movement beneath Alias' bent head and he knew he'd made the right call. "Do you really mean that?" she asked, her voice clearer now, as though she wasn't quite so huddled down.

"I would not make the offer if I didn't mean it. I just need you to talk to me, whatever it takes," he told her. "I am not angry at you and if you truly do not want me to blame Crosshairs and the others, I won't, but I must understand that what happened just now. I need to know how to ensure that it doesn't happen again. I can't do that if you won't talk to me."

Finally,  _finally_  Anna emerged from her hiding place. Prime's chest ached at the sight of her pale, tear-stained face. He wanted to reach for her but she climbed back onto the table and disappeared into the machine before he could. Respecting her wishes, he didn't try to touch her. "Teletraan, get the door, please."

It slid open and Wheeljack immediately poked his head in. He blinked to see Optimus sitting on the floor beside Alias but only hesitated for a moment. "You need me, Prime?"

Optimus nodded. "Come in," he said, and when the door closed again, he gestured toward the machinery. "I want you to reestablish the link."

After what had just happened with Starscream, that was clearly the last thing Wheeljack had been expecting. "But Optimus–" he protested.

"You assured me this morning that it was safe. Unless your opinion on that has changed, reestablish the link," Optimus repeated firmly, and Wheeljack swallowed the rest of his protest. "Once it's stable, leave us."

Wheeljack hesitated only a little at that, but then he moved to the controls. "Yes, Prime."

Alias started rocking a little when the link connected but apart from that, she didn't move at all. Wheeljack gently squeezed her shoulder in silent support as he passed behind her on his way back out. Once the door closed behind him, Optimus ordered, "Teletraan, lock the lab down. No audio or visual feed or recording, and no access into this area without my approval. Emergency notifications only, no other communication until further notice."

"Command confirmed, Prime."

"All right," he said softly, looking back at Alias. "We're alone again and we won't be interrupted. Will you look at me?"

She shook her head and kept rocking back and forth, back and forth, and Optimus hesitantly put his hand on her shoulder. She moved then, but only to wrap her arms around her legs and hide her face more firmly against her knees. Her distress hurt more than he would've thought possible. "Anna, please, say something. Say  _anything_."

She was silent for a long time before she finally whispered, "Don't be mad at Crosshairs and Bee."

"Anna, I swear I will give them both a damn medal if you'll just  _talk to me."_

Her arms loosened a little, and even though she didn't meet his eyes or stop rocking, Optimus was relieved to see her defensive position relaxing even the slightest bit. Finally she spoke. "You know what I kept thinking when Skyfire brought me back here?"

It wasn't an answer to any of his questions about how she'd ended up attacking Starscream and Prime absolutely wasn't complaining. She could talk about fairies and unicorns for all he cared so long as she didn't shut him out again. "What were you thinking?"

"That I never even got to give you a hug," she whispered. "There were always too many people around and it just didn't feel right with everyone watching. And then I screwed up and I didn't think I'd ever get a chance again." She gave a humorless little laugh that sounded more like a sob. "I thought that you pulling me off Starscream would be the closest I ever got."

Optimus leaned back against the base of the table and spread his arms. "It won't be," he said softly. "Come here."

An instant later she was in his lap with her forehead pressed against his shoulder and her arms locked around him. Optimus folded his arms around her held her tight as she trembled and clung to him like the only anchor in a storm. "I've got you," he whispered, stroking her back soothingly. "Shh, it's all right. You're safe now. I've got you, Anna."

Her trembling slowly eased but somehow, it seemed to migrate to Optimus instead. A sense of unreality threatened to overwhelm him. So many times he'd held her tiny, delicate body in one hand and feared that he might accidentally harm her, or carried her on his shoulder and worried that she might fall. So, so many times, he'd had to remind himself that they were too different to ever truly be together. It had always astonished him that someone so small could have such an enormous effect on him.

But now she was solid in his arms, no longer a fragile creature he feared to crush. He ran a hand over her head, down her back; felt the strength in her new body that matched the strength he'd always felt in her spirit. He pressed his cheek to hers and closed his eyes in wonder, remembering all the times he'd wished he could put his arms around her just like this and soaking in the feel of her on his lap, arms around his waist. Holding her this way was a every bit as amazing as he'd secretly dreamed it would be and he let himself get lost in the moment, thinking that she had been exactly right.

This was far too intimate to share with an audience.

She sighed and tightened her arms around him. "I love you, Optimus."

Those words, barely-audible though they were, still were enough to rock his entire world. Even before she had left, they'd rarely said that. During the few, brief conversations they'd shared in the three years that she'd been away, they had never said it at all. They'd always known nothing could ever come of their feelings and he'd always felt that the reminder of speaking it aloud was more painful than uplifting.

He hadn't realized until this moment just how much he'd ached to hear her say it again. "And I love you, Anna," he replied, voice deep with emotion. He rested his forehead against hers. "I hate that you have suffered, but I cannot be sorry that it brought you back to me."

She reached up and ran a fingertip down his cheek. "If we were human, this would be the part where we kiss, but Autobots don't kiss," she mused. "It's a shame. You don't know what you're missing."

"There are other things we do," Optimus said, tamping down on the little thrill her caress sent through his circuits. He had forbidden himself from even thinking along these lines the instant he'd first laid eyes on her Autobot as she was being built, but now that the thought had finally taken hold, he couldn't suppress a shiver. Alias was exquisite, absolutely the most beautiful Autobot he'd ever beheld, but it was more than that. This was Anna,  _his_  Anna. This was the realization of a dream he'd never dared to wish for.

And she kept touching him–his face, his neck, his chest–as though unaware she was doing it, until he caught her hand in his and stilled it over his spark before she completely derailed his train of thought.

"Optimus?"

He wrenched his thoughts back in line. "Yes?"

"I can't regret attacking Starscream." She leaned back a little, just enough to meet his eyes at last. "I know it was wrong here," she touched her temple, "but I can't regret it here." She tapped her chest, just over her spark.

Optimus swallowed his first instinctive reaction. Allowing his own fear to make him respond angrily when she was finally starting to calm down would not help. "I understand your feelings," he finally replied, his voice serious again. "And I cannot blame you for wanting revenge. But you must understand how very dangerous it was for you to attack him. You are untrained and unarmed, and Starscream has been a warrior for longer than you can imagine. He has survived thousands of battles. If he hadn't been badly wounded and caught off-guard, he could easily have…" This time his shiver was far from pleasant. "You are stronger as Alias, and you are larger than him, but you are not invincible."

She was silent for a long moment. "I wasn't thinking," she finally admitted. "I… you're right."

Optimus closed his eyes and cupped the back of her head. "You scared the hell out of me, Anna," he murmured roughly, resting his forehead against hers again. "Don't do it again. Promise me." She nodded and he sighed. "I need you to tell me what happened. Tell me what he did to you so that I can repay him properly."

And finally, she answered.

.

 _Anna hadn't fully understood what had happened until she woke up with a bright light in her eyes and her limbs strapped down, completely unable to move. She didn't even remember being attacked or captured. It was like skipping forward in a movie–in one frame she'd been driving in her car, and in the next,_ bright light/can't move.

_And then a voice she knew too well pierced the silence. "Welcome, Dr. Elias," Megatron said, his voice coming from just behind her shoulder. "We are so very glad you could join us. Tell me, have you actually succeeded in creating Energon in your lab yet?"_

_Her heart froze and then started pounding so hard it shook her entire body. "What are you talking about?" she gasped, hoping that playing dumb would fool them, all the while thinking_ how do they know? _She tried to activate the hidden button on the ring Perceptor had given her as an emergency beacon, but she couldn't manage to work the ring around on her finger in any way that would let her press the stone. "Who are you?"_

_"Oh, come now, that's no way to start off," Megatron purred, and then suddenly Starscream was there in her field of view, leaning over her with something in his hands. When he held it up for her to get a better look, she saw he held a thin wand with sparks arcing between the dual prongs at the end. "Give her a little motivation, Starscream," he said, and Starscream grinned as he obeyed._

_The taser-wand just touched her shoulder, almost gently, except for the vicious agony that burst through her entire body when electricity sizzled through her. When she stopped screaming, Megatron began to question her again. How did she know the Autobots? Was she working with them on her Energon formula? How did she contact them? Where was their base? What did she know about Energon? Had she succeeded in creating it in her lab? How much had she made? What had she done with it? Was she supplying the Autobots with Energon?_

_She played dumb at first, denying that she knew anything about Energon for as long as she could. When she didn't dare refuse to answer anymore, she lied, but they were rarely fooled and she got to know that taser very, very well._

_She lost track of time between the pain and fear and exhaustion. Occasionally she would pass out, a blessed reprieve, but they always revived her. Sometimes it felt like she'd been unconscious for days but Starscream would tell her she'd only been out for minutes. Other times they'd awaken her with a bucket of cold water, which she learned to recognize as a sign that they'd had difficulty rousing her. There was no food and only what water she managed to swallow when they doused her._

_Terror and agony filled every waking moment. Starscream didn't always use the wand to shock her, either. Sometimes Megatron would tell him to hit her with it instead, since it was less likely that she would lose consciousness that way. Whether he used the taser-wand to shock her or beat her, he never hit the same place twice. The only thing she could count on was fear._

_And the questions, of course. Always the questions._

_"How do you contact the Autobots?"_

_"Are you making Energon for them?"_

_"What formula are you using to create Energon?"_

_"How much Energon have you given to the Autobots?"_

_And finally, worst of all, "Help us capture Optimus Prime. Lure him into a trap for us and we will release you."_

_But that last threat actually gave her the strength to continue to resist them. She would never help them to harm Optimus. Toward the end, Anna thought they were getting desperate for answers, and despite everything, she took that as a hopeful sign that maybe the Autobots had discovered her kidnapping. Even when they gave up on merely beating her and started pulling fingernails instead, she refused to tell them anything. Her Autobot symbol might be only a tattoo, but she would never betray what it meant._

_Finally Megatron lost his patience with her growing weakness and continued refusal to cooperate. Ripping away the restraints that had kept her pinned to the table, he snatched her up and threw her at Starscream. "This one is useless!" he snarled. "Kill her and dump her where they won't find her, and bring me someone who will actually talk next time!"_

_Somehow she'd managed to activate the tracker hidden in her ring before Starscream caught her, but she didn't even know if it was still working after all the electric shocks she'd endured. The last thing she remembered before waking up in Optimus' quarters was being raised over the table, then swung down_ _like a rag-doll_ _before everything vanished in an explosive flash of pain at the back of her skull._


	10. No More Secrets

Prime was shaking with rage by the time she fell silent. He couldn't find any words of comfort or reassurance. All he could do was hold her tight and silently vow that he would never allow her to be harmed ever again.

Finally he found his voice. "I will make him tell me how they found you," he said, trying to keep his tone soothing but knowing that his fury came through despite his best efforts. He gave up hiding it from her. "And then I will crush his spark in my fist. He will die for what he did to you."

She tucked her head into the hollow of his shoulder. "Optimus, there's more, but… but please don't be angry with me," she whispered.

He frowned at the worry in her tone. "Why would I be–" he started, but she didn't let him finish the question.

"It's my fault that they found me. I… I wasn't in New England when they captured me. I left the university three months ago. I was in Nevada, working at Yucca Mountain." She finally raised her head again and looked hesitantly up at him. "The Decepticons weren't wrong, Optimus. I  _was_  working on Energon again. I just don't know how they found out about the project."

Prime rocked back a little with shock. All their plans to keep her safe, the entire reason she'd left the base–left  _him–_ it was all to keep the Decepticons from targeting her for her research into Energon! "Anna, you promised me that you wouldn't work with Energon anymore," he protested in disbelief. "We agreed that it was too dangerous!"

"I'm sorry, Optimus," Anna whispered. "I really am. But I think I've discovered a way to convert nuclear waste into Energon. I came upon it by accident, but once I saw the potential, I couldn't in good conscience ignore–"

"Why didn't you  _tell_  me?" he demanded, but it wasn't anger that filled him now. It was something far more painful. Didn't she trust him anymore? What had he done that she hadn't felt she could confide in him? He lowered his voice when she winced. "Anna," he said, making an effort to speak more quietly, "if you were going to put yourself at risk again in such a way, why didn't you tell me so I could help protect you?"

She reached up and cupped his cheek. "I was afraid for you," she breathed. "After Chicago, I was so afraid for you. You were all being hunted! They were painting you as the villains, tracking you down! And when I saw what happened in China…"

He tried not to feel offended. "I can take care of myself, Anna."

She smiled a little, caressing his face gently. "You want to protect me because you care for me," she said, and he nodded. "Optimus, that goes both ways."

He wanted to protest, but he well remembered the battles she'd mentioned. The Battle of Chicago had left him with one arm severely wounded and the other gone entirely by the end. And he'd barely escaped an ambush in Mexico City when the government hit squad had tracked him down there. In fact, if Cade hadn't found him in Texas and revived him, Optimus would never have even arrived in China. Without the help of the Dinobots, he doubted any of them would've survived the battle in Hong Kong. The human persecution had eased, but even now, it wasn't over. Autobots rarely went anywhere alone, just in case.

As much as he wished he could tell her that her fears were unreasonable, he could not.

"This has to end now, Anna. We cannot keep secrets from each other," he said instead. "We are a team, are we not? No more secrets."

She nodded immediately. "No more secrets," she agreed. "But that includes you, too. No more keeping me on the sidelines in the name of protecting me."

"That is fair. I will tell you everything," he promised.

She shook her head. "No. I need more than just information. If we really are a team, I can't only be this thing that needs protecting. I need to be your equal." She held up a hand when he started to protest. "I want to be involved, not just a bystander. If I'm going to be Alias, I want you to treat me like I'm really an Autobot. I  _need_  that, Optimus."

It went against all his instincts that demanded he protect her, but he couldn't deny her now. After all, his efforts at keeping her safe hadn't been exactly a resounding success. Finally he nodded and said, "You are my equal, Anna, in all things. I am sorry that I have not made you feel that way. I will do better."

"I will, too," she whispered. "I won't be careless with my safety again. I won't give them another chance to use me against you."

But hearing her say that so soon after describing how she'd withstood the Decepticons' torture–how she'd drawn strength from the threats they made against  _him–_ was more than Optimus could stand. "Anna, everything that happened to you is my fault," he said miserably, unable to repress the words as guilt stabbed him. "I failed you. If I had not sent you away, or if I had kept a closer eye on you–"

She stopped his mouth with her fingertips. "No, don't. Don't go down that road. We could both have done things differently. I could have told you what I planned to do instead of going off on my own, but I didn't. That's my fault, not yours, and it's done now." She hesitated for a long moment, her hand sliding around to cup his cheek. "Optimus, we haven't talked about this, but... let me stay this time. Please."

He nodded immediately. "I was wrong to send you away at all. I am not strong enough to let you go again, not for any reason," he admitted, knowing it was true. "For as long as you want to be here, this is your home."

For the first time, she smiled. It didn't last long, though. "While I'm asking you for things, I should tell you that I want to continue my research here," she finally said, her hand falling away from his face as she held his gaze very seriously. "I was close to figuring this out, Optimus. I was really close. With Perceptor's help, I think I can do it. It would help the entire planet if I can make Energon this way–and more importantly, it would help  _you_. Will you let me keep working?"

His instinct was to say no–after all, that research was how the Decepticons had found her. He pushed that initial reaction aside. As she'd said, they had discovered who she was now and what she knew. Forbidding her to continue would do nothing to undo that. "I will not stop you," he replied quietly.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I'll be careful, I promise."

"And I will be on my guard. I have promised you that you will be safe here. I will do whatever it takes to make that so," he said. "I will not fail you again, Anna." But that reminded him that Starscream was still waiting to be questioned, and the longer the Decepticon had to compose himself, the more difficult it would be to get the truth out of him. As much as Optimus would like to stay here and hold her, it was a luxury he just didn't have right now.

Reluctantly, Optimus released her and stood, then offered his hand and helped her up, too. "How are you feeling? Truly," he added, seeing that she was about to reply without thinking.

Anna paused before answering. "I think I'm actually okay," she finally said, and she sounded a little surprised to say it.

"Good," he replied, smiling at her and making another decision. "Because if you feel able, I want you to help me interrogate Starscream."

She froze, stunned. "What?" she gasped. "Why?"

"No more secrets–no more treating you differently," he reminded her. "If any other Autobot had been harmed by him, I would allow them to witness his interrogation." Then he smiled a little. "Besides, he believes he knows what methods I will use to question him, but you are a complete unknown to him. As much as you scared me, you absolutely terrified him. He will not be expecting your return, especially after your attack, and his uncertainty will work to our advantage. If you feel able to do it, Anna, your presence could be quite helpful."

She looked at him for a long moment before finally nodding. "You're... you're right. He needs to stop being my nightmare. What do you want me to do?"

He cupped her face in his hands and held her gaze. "First and foremost, promise me that you'll do what I say. Starscream is restrained, but he is still dangerous. If I tell you to get away from him or leave, I need to know you'll obey me immediately. There may not be time for explanations." He paused for a moment, then said, very seriously, "If you want me to treat you as one of my Autobots, you will have to obey my orders as your Prime."

She nodded solemnly. "I will. You have my word."

"Good." His smile turned a little vicious. "Then my first order to you is to do whatever you think will unnerve him most while I question him. Keep him off-guard. Scare him. So long as it does not put you in danger, I set no limits on what you can do to him." Because for Optimus, this was less about getting information from Starscream–he had many ways to get the cowardly Decepticon to talk–and more about giving Anna the chance to face her fear and conquer it.

Alias suddenly hugged him again, squeezing hard, clearly understanding his intentions. He closed his eyes and soaked it in. He truly wished they didn't have to leave the lab because he certainly hadn't had enough of holding her yet, and doubted he ever would. "Thank you, Optimus," she whispered. "For all of it." Then, too soon, she released him to step back and square her shoulders. "I'm ready. Lead the way."

.

Crosshairs was waiting when the lab door opened once more and Optimus stepped out. "Prime, I–" he began, wanting to get his apology out right away because he wasn't sure how long he'd retain the ability to speak once Optimus got his hands on him.

Optimus cut him off with a raised hand. "Say nothing. This time, you are pardoned." Then his eyes narrowed. "Do not give me cause to regret it."

Crosshairs nearly collapsed with relief. He'd really been anticipating a few Crosshairs-shaped dents in the walls and floors to match the ones from Prime's wrestling match with Ironhide and Skyfire. Optimus had always been very level-headed, but if anything could make a bot act out-of-character, it was danger to a loved one. "You won't regret it, Prime," he promised, then straightened up when Alias emerged behind Optimus. "Alias! You're all right?"

She took Prime's hand and smiled a little. "I will be," she said.

"Glad to hear it," he replied, meaning it. "And thank you. I think I owe you for saving me from an ass-beating."

"Oh, you do," Optimus growled, and Crosshairs quickly changed the subject just in case he wasn't quite as forgiven as he'd hoped.

"Ironhide, Drift, and Skyfire are still with Ratchet. They're waiting for you whenever you're ready to deal with the prisoner, Prime," he said quickly. Then he looked at Alias. "And I'll let Perceptor and Wheeljack know you're up and around. They wanted to check–"

"They'll have to wait," Optimus interrupted. "She's got something else to do first."

" _Before_  they check her over?"

"Yes."

Optimus led Alias past the clearly-surprised Crosshairs and down the corridor. He hurried to keep up–they were both taller than he was, and walking fast on those long legs. "What am I missing here?"

No one answered until they reached the secure bay that held Starscream and Prime finally stopped outside the door. Crosshairs didn't gape at his leader, but it took some effort–after all, he'd seen the video of her last visit to this room, and as awesome as it had been to watch Alias lay a serious beat-down on Starscream, Optimus had clearly  _not_  been pleased.

"You're messing with me, right?" Crosshairs said when Optimus just stared at the door without opening it, looking for all the world as though he was steeling himself. "You're not really taking her back in there for a second crack at him." When no one answered, he added uncertainly, "… wait, are you?"

Optimus finally turned and looked at Alias. She returned his gaze steadily, and after a long moment, Prime nodded. "She has the right to hear his answers," he said at last. He finally released her hand and glanced at Crosshairs. "Are you coming?"

There was no delay whatsoever in his nod. Watching the beating she'd delivered to the Decepticon on video had been fantastic enough, but getting a chance to see a replay live and in person? "Oh  _hell_  yeah, I wouldn't miss this for the world."


	11. A Few Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a couple of notes from people asking me to continue, so I'll keep updating this here, too. It's also on fanfiction dot net under the same name if anyone wants to keep up with it there.

Starscream seethed with impatience and, yes, fear. He had given up on getting Drift and Hound to tell him anything. The two Autobots remained infuriatingly silent no matter what threats or entreaties he made while Ratchet worked on him. It was no more than he'd really expected, but it was still frustrating, and it didn't give him any clues whatsoever about the big, unknown Autobot who'd attacked him.

And he needed to know. Megatron would be angry enough that he'd gotten himself captured. Giving him information about this new Autobot could deflect some of that wrath. If he played it right, maybe he could even convince Megatron that he'd allowed himself to be captured for just this reason… but if he wanted to play the angle that he'd gone along with the capture to gather intel, then he actually needed to  _get_  some intel.

When Skyfire and Ironhide had returned without his attacker or Optimus Prime, he'd tried demanding answers from them instead. Skyfire had only laughed at his questions, but Ironhide had grinned and said, "Oh, please, ask me that again. No, better yet, wait and ask  _Optimus_ , I truly dare you. I'd pay to see that show," and even Starscream was smart enough to drop it after that. Whoever the new Autobot was, he was clearly important enough that the rest of them were vigilantly protecting him.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the tense silence was broken by the faint sound of several sets of footsteps outside the door. Starscream wanted to shout  _who's there_  but one glance at the table that still held his arm and finger was enough to prevent it. Ratchet had stopped the Energon-bleeding but had made no move whatsoever to repair him, and agony still sparked along his circuits from the amputations. He well remembered Prime's threat about questions and had no desire to give him any excuse to harm him further.

It was the right choice not to give voice to his curiosity. The door slid open, revealing Crosshairs and Optimus Prime standing in the hall. Crosshairs entered but Optimus stayed where he was, blocking the doorway. Hound raised an eyebrow at the green Autobot as he approached. "You survived, huh?" he asked.

Crosshairs made a rude gesture where Prime couldn't see it, but he was grinning. "Just wait. You're not going to believe what's coming," he murmured as he passed Hound to stop at the end of Starscream's table. He shot the Decepticon an evil grin. "This is about to get awesome."

Starscream couldn't stop a shudder at the glee in his tone.  _Autobots don't torture captives,_  he told himself silently, but it wasn't a comforting reassurance when he'd just been assaulted and half torn apart by that new Autobot. And Optimus continued to stand there in the open doorway, hands on his hips, silently glaring at him. He'd never seen the Autobot leader look more forbidding. None of the others said a word, merely waited for their Prime to make the next move while the tension mounted.

Finally, Prime broke the silence. "Starscream," he said in a low rumble as he slowly walked forward, "you  _will_  tell me what I want to know. Do not fool yourself on that score. And I will not tell you that you can do this the easy way or the hard way, because I have no reason to offer you an easy way. The only choice you have to make is this: you can answer to me…"

And he finally stepped aside, revealing what had been behind him.

The dark Autobot who had assaulted him stood in the doorway, head down and arms hanging loosely, as though ready for action. Between the unexpected speed of the attack and his desperate attempts to protect his eyes, Starscream hadn't been able to get much of a look at his attacker, but now they gave him time to look his fill.

And his jaw dropped in complete disbelief.  _This was a female!_

Starscream knew his mouth was hanging open and could do nothing about it. He hadn't seen a female Transformer since he'd left their home planet millions of years ago. She wasn't a bot he'd ever seen on Cybertron, either–as striking as she was, he was certain he would've remembered this one. Nearly as tall as Prime, she had the undifferentiated appearance of a Transformer who had not yet scanned an Earth alt-form. No weapons systems were visible but his face and neck still throbbed from getting slammed into the floor, reminding him not to underestimate her. Not that she'd needed any weapons to remove his finger. As if thinking of the same thing, her eyes narrowed and her hands flexed and fisted.

He shivered in his bonds, wishing he could cringe away. Very beautiful but clearly hungry to get her hands on him again–and not in any way that he'd enjoy–this female was one he had no desire to know further. Starscream was abruptly very glad that she was still in the hall and prayed that she would stay there.

Hound and Ratchet had both moved forward at her appearance, clearly shocked. "Prime!" Skyfire protested, "what are you  _doing?"_

Optimus shut them all down with a gesture. "–or you can answer to  _her_ ," he finished his offer grimly. "And I do not much care which." The female raised her head at that and gave Starscream a slow, gentle smile that was somehow more threatening than any snarl could ever be. "Choose," Optimus growled.

"You, Prime! You," Starscream blurted immediately. For all that he'd dreamed of seeing a female of his kind after all these aeons and for all that she was beautiful, he had no illusions about what would happen were he left alone with this Autobot. At least with Optimus, there were rules. "Keep her the hell away from me!"

The female walked into the bay at that, stopping just behind Prime's shoulder like a bodyguard. Optimus didn't so much as look at her. Starscream glanced from face to face–Ratchet's stunned expression; Ironhide silent and stoic, giving nothing away; Skyfire's uncertainty as he looked from her to Prime and back; Hound grinning like he'd just gotten the best gift ever; Crosshairs's blatant glee–there was nothing there to reassure him at all. And worst of all, that knowing smile on the female's face as she stared unblinkingly at him. "Where did she come from?" Starscream whispered, unable to hold the words back.

Ironhide abruptly slapped the table holding Starscream's arm, making the Decepticon jump. "Was that a question?" he shouted.

"No!" Starscream denied immediately, cursing himself for allowing his shock to make him forget Optimus Prime's threat. He watched Prime and the female anxiously for their reactions, but so far all that had happened was that Prime's eyes narrowed and she lost her smile. He curled his remaining fingers into a fist as though that could protect them. "No, no, of course it wasn't!"

The Autobots let the silence stretch out until Starscream's fist began to shake with nerves. Finally, Optimus spoke. "A human scientist was recently kidnapped, tortured, and left for dead in Houston," he said, ignoring the issue of the question entirely. "And you were responsible."

Starscream's attention jerked back to his current predicament and his spark sank. He'd been trying to convince himself that Prime's clear rage during their battle and his capture didn't necessarily mean that they'd discovered the dead scientist, because Megatron would not take kindly to his failure to dispose of the human somewhere that she wouldn't be found. Well, perhaps he could convince Prime that he hadn't been responsible. He opened his mouth to deny his role–

–but the female's head snapped up as though sensing his intentions. In her gaze he saw anger, but worse than that, the  _knowledge_  there changed his mind in a hurry.

Whoever this Autobot was and wherever she'd come from, she knew  _exactly_  who had killed the human.

"Yes," Starscream blurted. She smiled tightly but didn't move and that was good enough for him. He well remembered Hound saying that Prime didn't have much control over this one and his hand ached where his finger used to be. What the hell kind of Autobot  _bit_  like that?

Prime's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

Starscream hesitated, but when the female took a step forward, he cringed. "She led a human team that was working on Energon synthesis."

"How did you find out about the project?" Optimus asked.

"There were unusual energy readings detected in the Nevada desert," Starscream said as the female started to pace behind Prime, back and forth, back and forth… no, not just pacing,  _prowling_  like some kind of predator that was only barely resisting the urge to strike. He didn't dare take his eyes off her. "Lord Megatron sent us to investigate."

Prime crossed his arms, ignoring the pacing going on behind him. "How did you choose which scientist to take?"

Starscream shifted a little in his bonds. He hadn't given away any information Megatron would care about yet, but this… this was a question he didn't want to answer. "Choose? We merely captured the first one we–"

He screamed as the female Autobot leapt on him. She grabbed his forehead with one hand, slamming his head back against the table, her other hand poised mere inches from his face, fingers curled into claws.  _"Liar!"_  she snarled.

"All right, all right!" he screamed. He squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could, the scratches she'd dug across his face stinging. Primus, she was fast! "Megatron sent us for Dr. Elias specifically! Get her off me!"

But not one of the other Autobots so much as moved. Starscream shuddered as her hold on his head abruptly eased and she ran a fingertip across his brow and down his nose, gentle as a lover. "I still want your eyes. Please lie some more so Optimus Prime will let me have them," she murmured, then finally released him.

She didn't go back to her place at Prime's shoulder, however. She stood just behind Starscream now, where he could barely see her when he turned his head as far as he could, and he had to try to infer her movements by watching the faces of the Autobots around him.

It was much, much worse than watching her prowl behind Prime.

"I will ask you again," Prime said as though nothing untoward had happened. He hadn't even uncrossed his arms. "How did Megatron know which scientist to take?"

"Megatron said she was the head of the project!" Starscream said, trying desperately to turn his head far enough to keep track of the female, who had started to pace again. Her rhythmic footsteps traveled from left to right and back again, giving him only the merest glimpse of her at each side. "And he said she was connected to the Autobots!"

Prime moved for the first time at that. He strode up to Starscream, stopping mere feet away. "And how did he know that?"

"I don't know!" Starscream heard the footsteps stop behind him and tried to see what the female was doing back there. Not being able to see her was disconcerting as hell, especially with her clearly violent tendencies. "I swear I don't know!" he repeated as fervently as he could. "He didn't tell me!"

"Guess," she murmured right beside his ear, making him jerk against his bonds–he hadn't thought she was so close. "Or I take an eye."

"I don't know!" he cried again, leaning as far away from her as his bonds would allow and glancing over at Ironhide. The big warrior just watched, face giving nothing whatsoever away, but this was usually his job. Clearly Optimus had given Ironhide's usual place as his enforcer to this female, but where the hell had they found such a crazy Autobot? First biting, and now this obsession with tearing out his eyes? And Optimus wasn't doing a thing to rein her in! Had he really reassured himself that Optimus had rules only a few minutes ago? "Prime, you wouldn't really let her–"

"Weren't you listening to Hound? I don't control her," Optimus cut him off. He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a growl. "And even if I did, you may rest assured that the only reason I would stop her from taking whatever trophies she wants from your miserable corpse would be to have the pleasure of presenting them to her myself. Do not test me, Decepticon."

Starscream gaped at him–he'd never seen Prime in such a vicious mood. Even Megatron would have trouble matching the level of menace Prime exuded now. He wasn't given time to recover from the threat before Prime continued. "I am growing tired of repeating myself. How did Megatron know to take Dr. Elias? How did he learn of her connection to us?"

The enforcer's hands framed his face when he hesitated, her cold metal fingertips resting alongside his eyes. Completely freaked out now, Starscream tried to shake her hands off. All he got for his trouble was a tighter grip and her fingers inching ever closer to his optics.  _Betray Megatron or lose my eyes? Betrayal or blindness?_  It was an impossible decision. "He always has spies! Human spies!" Starscream cried, praying they would buy his evasion. "Maybe one of them–"

"I am not interested in  _maybe_ ," Optimus growled. He straightened and glanced at the female. "Enough warnings. Take an eye."

Her fingers blotted out his view of the room and Starscream broke. "Stop! Stop! He has a spy on the team!" he shouted desperately. "Thompson, his name is Thompson! He told us who to take!" The grip on his head tightened as she restrained him with one hand despite his increasingly frantic struggles. Her fingertips brushed his eyelid and he bit back another scream. "He told us she wore an Autobot mark! He said he'd seen it!"

Her hold didn't loosen, but neither did she rip out his eye. "And why take the lead scientist before they were finished?" she asked, her tone very soft in contrast to the painful grip she still had on his head. "Why not let them complete their research and then just take the results?"

"Because she was working with the Autobots!" Starscream cried. He wasn't even trying to lie now–Megatron would be angry, but Starscream had weathered that fury before and survived, and if he gave Optimus Prime the information he wanted now, at least he would be able to see Megatron coming later. "If they cracked the formula, she would just give it to you! And Megatron knew that once that happened, we would never get it. Lord Megatron wanted to find out what she knew and have Soundwave and Dr. Thompson take over the project. I'm cooperating, Prime, get her off me!"

Again, they all ignored that, but thankfully her fingers retreated. Even if she didn't release her hold on his head, that was an enormous relief.

"But despite your torture, you found out nothing. She told you nothing," Optimus said, and it wasn't even a question. Starscream wasn't sure if he hated him more for being so certain or for being right. "Have you taken any of the other scientists?"

"No," Starscream said bitterly. "Our spy said the project has come to a standstill. The human government wants to shut it down."

"Because you killed Dr. Elias," the female said, squeezing his head between her hands hard enough to make him groan. "And she did not tell the others everything she knew, did she."

"Why kill her?" Optimus asked. When Starscream hesitated, he suddenly punched Starscream's in the center of his chest hard enough to crack the armor over his spark, and he didn't remove his hand. "Don't make me repeat myself again, Decepticon," he warned as Starscream wheezed. "I have been using considerable restraint with you so far but my mood could change at any time."

"Why do you think?" Starscream asked, panicking.  _This_  was considerable restraint? He had never seen the Autobot leader behave in such a bloodthirsty way–even in battle, Optimus Prime always tried not to kill. Giving this female permission to tear out his eyes was bad enough, but to threaten to rip out the spark of a bound and helpless prisoner like this? Everything he thought he knew about how Prime operated was being turned on its head. "She knew how to do it but she would tell us nothing. We could not allow you to have such an advantage!"

Optimus exchanged a look with the female. Starscream sagged in relief when her hands finally left his head and he heard her step away, but his relief was short-lived because Optimus did not remove his hand from over his spark. "I've told you everything!" he said, trying without success to shift away from that silent threat. The enforcer walked to the door without a backward glance, Drift falling in behind her, and he started to hope that he'd really get out of this with his optics intact. "What more do you want from me?"

Optimus didn't reply for a long moment. Finally he straightened and said, "You will deliver a message to your leader. Those who wear the Autobot symbol, be they human or Cybertronian, are under my protection. Should you dare to attack them, I  _will_  have vengeance. Is that clear?"

Starscream nodded immediately–right now, he would agree to anything Prime said if it looked like doing so would convince them to release him without further harm. "Yes, Optimus Prime, yes, I will deliver your message," he agreed eagerly.

"Oh, I know you will," Prime said, stepping back. "But not yet. We may have more questions for you later." He started to walk away but paused as if something had just occurred to him. "And there's just one more thing."

"Yes?"

Prime's Energon sword shot out of his arm. Starscream yelled, "No!" as Prime spun around and brought the sword down in a glowing arc, severing his right leg just above the knee.

"I warned you not to ask questions," Optimus growled over his screams.

.


	12. Aftermath

Optimus followed Alias and Drift out, retracting his sword on the way, grimly pleased with how well that had gone. He had never imagined how threatening his gentle Anna could be and she'd had Starscream positively shaking. In fact, Optimus was a little surprised that she'd walked out while Starscream was giving up so much, but he chalked it up to the stress of having to relive her ordeal with the one who'd tortured her. He wasn't concerned–the Decepticon wasn't going anywhere, and now that he'd been broken once, Optimus could do it again at any time.

But his satisfaction was short-lived because he had only taken a few steps down the corridor after them when Alias stumbled and fell to her hands and knees on the floor.

"Alias!" Optimus cried, rushing over and going to his knees beside her as she collapsed.

"I'm all right," she gasped even while she shuddered hard and rocked forward until her forehead was pressed against the floor. "I'm all right."

"You do not seem all right," Drift said in concern.

"Get Ratchet," Prime ordered.

"No," Alias said quickly before he could leave. "No, Drift, don't, I'm okay. I… I just feel sick. I can't believe…" She retched, a purely human reaction that accomplished nothing in her Autobot body. "I've known James Thompson for over three years. I thought we were friends. I helped him plan his wedding, for God's sake," she said miserably. "And he sold me to the Decepticons. He all but gift-wrapped me for them and he  _knew_  what they would do to me. How could he do that to me, Optimus?"

Prime pulled her from the floor and into his arms. She went unresistingly, hiding her face against his chest. "Betrayal is never easy to face," he murmured. "I'm sorry."

"I need to warn the others that they're in danger," she whispered, "but we just told Starscream that I'm dead. How can I tell the team that Thompson's not to be trusted without the Decepticons figuring out that I survived?"

"Have no fear, Alias. That is not an insurmountable obstacle," Drift reassured her. "Starscream knows already that we found you. Had you not survived, we would still have investigated to discover why you'd been targeted."

"We can ensure that your friends are warned without compromising your safety," Optimus agreed. She nodded gratefully. "You were amazing in there, you know," he added, hoping to cheer her up a little. "You should be proud."

"Maybe I will be when I'm not so dizzy," she whispered, holding onto him a little tighter.

The door opened again and Drift quickly stepped in front of Optimus and Alias to make sure that Starscream couldn't catch a glimpse of them, but it was only Ratchet. To his credit, he didn't react to seeing them on the floor until the door closed again, but then he hurried to kneel down beside them. "I was coming to check on you," he said, frowning at her in concern. "I see that I was right to be worried. I think you should shut down now and rest. You've had quite a shock today."

"I think you're right, Ratchet," she said weakly, still slumped against Optimus. "I… am suddenly very tired."

"I'm sure you're low on power. Do you think you can walk back to the lab?" Ratchet asked.

"She doesn't have to," Optimus said, scooping her up before she had a chance to answer. She didn't protest, just kept her head on his shoulder and submitted to being carried, and that worried him almost as much as seeing her collapse. After the way she'd asked to be treated no differently from any other Autobot, that showed him more than anything just how exhausted she was.

It only took a few moments to arrive back at Wheeljack's lab. Optimus felt her go limp as they approached the doorway, even before he had laid Alias on the table. He put her down as quickly as he could while still being gentle, then exchanged a worried look with Ratchet as he turned toward the little table. "Anna, are you all right?" When she didn't immediately reply, Wheeljack hit the emergency-stop button that made the stretcher slide out of the machine. "Anna!"

Anna jerked at the abrupt movement and opened her eyes. "I think I dozed off," she answered, blinking rapidly. "Sorry."

"Falling asleep ends the link," Ratchet murmured, typing something into the computer. "That's good to know. How do you feel?"

She sat up slowly and rubbed a hand over her face. "I'm all right," she said. "But I think maybe we were right about just doing this once a day. It's awesome, but I'm really worn out right now."

"Well, I'm not surprised that you're exhausted," Ratchet said as he scrolled through data on Teletraan's main display. "We don't even have Alias fully powered-up yet and you still laid Starscream out like a bad rug. As someone who's fought him before, I can tell you that takes some doing."

"Oh, yeah, you were impressive," Wheeljack chimed in. "He never knew what hit him."

"You kicked his ass," Drift agreed, also grinning.

"Oh, God, how many people were there for that?" Anna groaned, covering her face.

"Only a lucky few. I had to settle for the video replay," Wheeljack told her sadly. "Luckily Teletraan put it up on the big-screen in the common room so it was almost like being there. You had quite the audience."

"I'm surprised you didn't hear the cheering," Skyfire added when she groaned again. "I think Sideswipe is going to start a fan club."

"I'd join," Wheeljack agreed. "And Bumblebee nearly had a short-circuit laughing at the look on Prime's face when Starscream's arm came off in his hands."

"Who could blame him? Sorry, Optimus, but that was pretty priceless," Ratchet said, exchanging a glance with Optimus that showed him that this conversation wasn't accidental. The Autobots were deliberately using humor to help defuse the trauma she'd just been through.

Optimus inclined his head gratefully. "I was a little surprised," he said, playing along.

"My favorite part was when you bit his finger off," Ratchet continued.

"Oh, yes, the biting! It was so unexpected," Drift said approvingly.

"Well, he grabbed my face and his finger went in my mouth," Anna protested, her voice muffled a little by her hands, but they could tell she was actually laughing a little now. "What was I supposed to do?"

"Exactly what you did," Drift replied. "Unexpected is very good, Anna."

"Incidentally, how does Decepticon taste?" Wheeljack asked, all scientific curiosity.

"Nasty. Be glad you don't have a mouth," Anna said, and she finally uncovered her face when they laughed. "Wait a second. Ratchet, did you say I wasn't at full-power?"

Ratchet nodded. "We've limited Alias to fifty-percent power for the duration of testing," he confirmed. "Not gonna cross you when you're at full strength, that's for sure."

Drift smiled. "You have the spirit of a true warrior, Anna."

She blushed but looked pleased at their praise. Ratchet exchanged another look with Optimus, who nodded. "You should probably let Optimus take you back to get some rest now," the medic said, attaching a set of charging cables to Alias. "Cade said that he and Tessa were going to make some food. Eat if you can. We want you strong enough to link in again tomorrow."

"All right, Ratchet," she said, reaching out to find Prime's waiting hand. "How long was I in the link?"

"Almost six hours total," Wheeljack replied. "I had Teletraan run some scans while you were with Starscream and apart from your fatigue, there were no ill effects that I can detect. Tomorrow we might try an entire day, if you have the energy for it."

"But let's not get ahead of ourselves," Optimus interrupted. He lifted her up but didn't put her on his shoulder–she was practically sagging with exhaustion and he didn't want her to have to hold on. "There's no rush, Anna. Alias isn't going anywhere. We have time." She smiled brilliantly at that, and was asleep in his hand seconds later.


	13. Not A Good Idea, Drift

Cade and Tessa sought out Wheeljack the next morning after dropping off a big tray of breakfast with Optimus, who had told them that Anna was just waking up. They found the scientist in his lab with Perceptor. Both were bent over Alias, tools in hand, while Ratchet and Skyfire had their heads together near the big computer on the other side of the lab. The deactivated Autobot's chest was open, circuitry exposed. "Hey, guys, what's up?" Cade asked, a little surprised to see them working on Alias without Prime or Anna in attendance.

They all nodded to the humans without stopping what they were doing. "Good morning," Perceptor said as he handed Wheeljack a tool. "We're just giving her a little tune-up."

"What kind of tune-up?" Tessa asked.

"Getting ready to move forward a bit," Wheeljack elaborated. "We're installing her cog."

Cade's eyebrows rose–he wasn't likely to forget that full-body shudder yesterday when she hadn't been able to enter battle-mode because she had no transformation cog installed, and he'd watched the video feed of her attack on Starscream with the rest of the Autobots. The bots had gone wild with cheers when she'd attacked Starscream but he'd been shocked at the amount of violence she'd been capable of even without a battle-mode. Anna most definitely had a temper on her. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Perceptor shrugged. "Prime is, and we're comfortable with it too. Besides, the kill-switch is still in play," he pointed out. "If things go wrong, we can still shut her down."

"But we agree that the risk of aggression psychosis is low now. Anyway, she's earned it," Wheeljack said. "Obviously Prime trusts her to remain in control of herself now or he would never have let her assist with Starscream's interrogation. There's no real reason not to move forward to the next step in the testing."

Cade nodded. He'd been a little stunned to learn that Optimus had allowed that, but when Drift had described how effectively their  _bad cop/worse cop_  routine had worked to rattle the Decepticon and get him to talk, he had to admit that it had been a good plan. "This idea she has about making Energon from nuclear waste," he said, changing the subject. "Do you think she could actually do it?"

Wheeljack finished tightening whatever he'd put into Alias' chest and finally looked up. "She's studied Energon more than anyone else on your planet, Cade. If she thinks it can be done, I certainly wouldn't rule it out."

Perceptor nodded. "Honestly, I'm looking forward to working with her on it. You know the Energon shortage has been a problem for us since we arrived on Earth five years ago and it's an intriguing idea. We can't afford to overlook any possible lead, and she's got a fascinating mind."

"Well, it's not my field, but let me know if I can help," Cade offered. "I make a great lab assistant."

Optimus and Anna arrived about half an hour later with Ratchet and Skyfire. "Are you finished with Alias? Is she ready for the link?" Prime asked after greeting the humans.

"Yes, we're just finishing up her upgrades now," Perceptor replied.

"Upgrades?" Anna asked, sitting up straighter on his shoulder and looking confused. "I thought you said we were taking a step back. Why is he talking about upgrades?"

"Stepping back?" Perceptor echoed, also perplexed. "No, Optimus told us to move forward."

Optimus looked very pleased with himself as he glanced down at her. "Surprise."

Anna shook her head slowly, an answering smile curving her lips. "Oh, you just earned so many brownie points, big guy," she told him quietly, and he grinned. "So many."

"Wheeljack, tell her what she's getting," Optimus said, sounding like a game show host offering a grand prize.

"We've unlocked your uplink to Teletraan and installed your transformation cog," Wheeljack answered as he and Perceptor finished closing up Alias' chest. "Prime discussed it with us last night while you were sleeping. You've done well with every test, Anna. We all agree that you're ready to move forward."

Anna's face lit up with excitement. "Really?"

Skyfire and Ratchet nodded along with the other two scientists. "Yes, really. It's the next step," Ratchet said. Then he smiled. "We'll also be increasing you to 75% power for this. That should increase your endurance, but try not to start any more fistfights."

To Cade's surprise, the reminder of her lapse of control only made Prime shake his head. "I'll see you in a moment, Anna," was all he said as he lowered her to the link table.

A few seconds later, Anna went still as Alias powered on. She sat up quickly, then stopped, wide-eyed. She shook out her arms and shoulders like an athlete warming up. "Whoa, I can feel the power difference already," she said, swinging her legs over the side of the table and kicking her feet. Her face broke into a grin as she stretched her arms up over her head. "Wow, Ratchet!"

"Is the difference that noticeable?" Tessa asked.

"Oh, definitely," Alias said, flexing her fingers. "She's really responding now. I didn't realize it, but it was kind of like riding a bicycle with flat tires before. Everything took a lot of effort. I thought that was just how it was supposed to be, but this…" She stood up and bounced a little on her feet, then grinned. "This feels awesome, guys. I can't wait to see what full power is like!"

Ratchet smiled back at her. "We want you to try to conserve your energy," he reminded her. "You'll need it when you start transforming."

"So how does she learn to do that?" Cade asked eagerly. Her excitement was infectious. "And what is she going to transform into?"

"We'll want to move away from the lab equipment before we try that," Optimus said. As always, he had taken her hand as soon as she awakened. "But first, there's one more thing I asked them to give you. Perceptor?"

The scientist came forward and reached for her free hand. "I'm sure you will learn how to release it yourself soon enough and we'll remove this, but for now, we've put a manual trigger here." He stretched out her arm and then pressed a spot just inside her elbow.

Alias jumped as her hand retracted and a blade very reminiscent of Prime's Energon sword shot out. "Whoa!" she cried, lifting her arm and staring at the long sword in shock for a moment. Then she turned to Optimus, eyes very wide. "Optimus, after what I did yesterday… are you sure?"

"Very sure. You were in danger and unarmed yesterday," he said quietly. "I will not have that happen again, no matter the reason."

"To tell you the truth, it was a big part of why we're moving forward now," Ratchet told her. "Prime made the suggestion and we all agreed that it's time for the training wheels to start coming off. You're ready, Anna. The sword is first, and if you can handle that, well, we'll move up from there."

"It doesn't charge up the way Prime's does," Wheeljack warned. "Not yet, anyway. It's a weapon of last resort right now, mostly defensive. Drift will teach you how to use it."

Alias let go of Optimus long enough to find the trigger mechanism and press it again. The sword vanished into her wrist and her hand folded back out. She wiggled her fingers for a moment and then did it again, bringing the sword back out with a metallic  _whoosh_. "That is the coolest thing I have ever seen," she breathed, turning the sword this way and that to admire the edge.

"Drift says he's looking forward to training you," Wheeljack said, winking at her. "I think you impressed him."

"And when you're ready, Crosshairs will teach you to shoot," Optimus added.

"Not you?" Cade asked, surprised. Crosshairs was undoubtedly an excellent shot, but Optimus was no slouch, either.

Optimus shook his head. "I will oversee her training, of course, but Crosshairs is our best marksman. He will take the lead. I'll be teaching her hand-to-hand fighting," he said, and Cade could understand that. No one bested Prime in a brawl.

"Not that I don't appreciate everyone volunteering to teach me, but can't I just matrix all this into my brain?" Alias asked, then seeing the blank looks around the lab, she rolled her eyes, exasperated. "Wow, you guys really need to watch some movies. In  _The Matrix,_  they learned new things by downloading data directly into their brains. Neo jacked in all these fight techniques and became a badass in an afternoon."

Optimus shook his head, clearly amused at the idea. "We do give you some programs, but even so, if you try to access the information for the first time during a fight, you're going to get beaten," he said. "You still need to train, sorry."

She sighed sadly. "So you're telling me that Hollywood lied. That's just disappointing, I don't mind telling you." Then she sheathed the sword one last time and hugged Optimus tight. "Thank you," she whispered.

He held her for a moment, then leaned back just a little and cupped her face in one hand. "We will teach you how to defend yourself, but try not to put yourself in a situation where you have to do so," he told her gently. "Let us be the muscle–we're good at it. Your greatest weapon is still your mind." Then he smiled a little. "But if you need a weapon, it's there. You aren't helpless."

She nodded and hugged him again before stepping back and taking his hand once more. She opened her mouth to say something but then froze, an arrested look on her face. "Hey, internet access," she said, eyes going unfocused. She closed her eyes and Cade saw the quick flicker of rapid-eye-movements for a moment. Then Alias looked at them again and grinned. "Guys, this is like Christmas!"

Cade nudged his daughter. "It's a good thing you don't have web access in your head," he teased her. "I'd never see you again." She slapped his arm and he laughed.

Alias shook her head as though clearing it, then looked up at Optimus. "I feel different. Not bad," she added quickly when Optimus immediately looked concerned, "just different. It's hard to describe it, but it's like… like having a new limb that I don't know how to move yet. It's there but I don't know what to do with it."

"You're probably sensing the cog," Perceptor guessed.

"What's it like?" Cade asked. Of all the things that fascinated him about the Autobots, their ability to transform was obviously top of the list.

She looked thoughtful, a little distracted. "It's kind of like when you really want to pop your knuckles or something. A tension, something wanting to be released. Or… or like there's a new direction, a way to move that I've never gone before." She fidgeted a little bit. "It's impossible to describe it to you but I really,  _really_  want to play with this, guys. You have no idea."

"Well, don't play with it in here," Wheeljack said, and Tessa slapped her father's arm again when he snorted.

"Let's move to the secondary hangar bay," Ratchet suggested. "It's just around the corner and there's not much in there that you could damage if your attempts at transformation go awry."

"Wow. Your faith in me just warms my little heart, Ratchet," Alias said dryly.

Optimus smiled at her sarcasm. "It's not a lack of faith. We were created knowing how to transform. You were not," he explained. "Learning to access the transformation cog is a process none of us have been through. No one knows quite what to expect."

Alias grinned. "You do realize that just makes me more excited about it, right?"

"I'm not surprised," Optimus said. He gestured toward the door. "We won't make you wait any longer, then."

Ratchet transformed so Cade and Tessa could get in. They followed the other Autobots as they left the lab to reconvene in the hangar–all but Skyfire, who volunteered to stay and monitor Anna in the lab. On the way, they passed by the common room where several other Autobots were lounging around the large television. "Hey, what's this parade?" Sideswipe called out the door as the group went by.

"They're teaching Alias to transform," Cade replied out Ratchet's window.

"What? Oh, wait up, I'm watching that!" Crosshairs said, jumping up.

"Me too," Sideswipe agreed, hurrying after him.

Bumblebee made an  _ooh!_  sound and nodded vigorously, following them both and rubbing his hands together. " _This is gonna be good, I can tell,_ " Dory's voice from  _Finding Nemo_  played as he fell in behind Ratchet. By the time they reached the hangar, the group had grown to include Drift, Inferno, and Prowl, too. In fact, the only Autobots  _not_  coming along were Ironhide and Hound, who were guarding Starscream, and Smokescreen and Tracks, who were out on patrol.

Cade and Tessa got out and joined the Autobots along the wall while Prime led Alias, Ratchet, Perceptor, and Wheeljack into the empty center of the huge hangar. "Not sure how much I'm loving the live studio audience," she said, glancing back at all of them as Ratchet shifted back to his robot form. "No pressure, right?"

"Well, if they get too annoying, just tackle 'em and beat their faces into the floor," Wheeljack suggested without even looking up from the data he was entering. His comment was immediately met with whoops and cheers from the rest and Alias groaned.

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

"Are you kidding?" Inferno called back. "You made Starscream cry like a hatchling, of course we're never letting you forget it!"

" _Oh help, someone get it off me!"_  Sideswipe squealed, waving one hand around in panic while Bumblebee jumped on him and pretended to attack him.  _"Aaaaaah!"_

"That's not a bad re-enactment, but there was more screaming," Ratchet critiqued.

Bumblebee fist-bumped Sideswipe as Crosshairs shouted, "Hey, Prime, you better watch your step with that one. She's vicious when she's pissed!"

"I'm on my best behavior, believe me. I like my eyes where they are," Optimus replied, making her cover her face with her hands.

"Oh God, I can't believe you just said that to them," she whispered to him, but he just laughed and put his arm around her.

"They're proud of you," he murmured back. She looked up at that, startled, and he nudged her shoulder with his. "And anyway, they're right. You really  _are_  vicious when you're–" She shoved him and he broke off, laughing, but this time she was laughing, too.

When the teasing at last began to taper off, Alias glanced over at Ratchet. The medic seemed to be leading the experiment today. "So you want me to start off with trying to go into battle-mode again, right?" she asked, and he nodded. "How do I do that?"

"That's a little hard to answer because it's automatic for us, but you almost did it yesterday," he told her. "Before you left the common area, you very nearly accessed your battle mode. You weren't able to do so because you didn't have your cog yet, but you've got it now. Do you remember what you did then?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure," she said slowly. "I wasn't actually thinking much."

"What were you feeling, then?" Wheeljack asked.

Alias looked up at Optimus, the last traces of her amusement fading away as she remembered that moment. "I felt… terrified," she said quietly, and he took her hand.

"Fear is nothing to be ashamed of," Optimus reassured her. "It's what you do with the fear that matters. You can suppress it and become reckless and blind to danger, or you can allow it to sharpen your focus. There can be no courage without fear." Alias held his gaze for a long moment before nodding. He squeezed her hand and then released her. "You're safe here. Try whenever you're ready."

Alias rolled her shoulders, trying to relieve some of her nervousness, and thought about that moment when Teletraan had announced Starscream's arrival. She remembered the surge of terror and the full-body shudder that everyone told her had been Alias' attempt to enter battle-mode, but although she remembered the sensation, she couldn't recall how she'd triggered it. She closed her eyes and concentrated but it didn't help. That visceral fear wouldn't return on demand. Conscious of all the eyes upon her, she tried to imagine Starscream escaping his bonds and coming after her, but thinking of him trying to attack with only one leg and one arm–and not even all his fingers–was actually more amusing than frightening.

Besides, Optimus was right beside her, as were almost all of the Autobots. Nothing could possibly touch her here.

She persisted, very conscious of time passing, before she finally opened her eyes and shook her head, frustrated. "Nothing," she grumbled. "I know it's there, I just can't–"

Suddenly Drift was a blur of motion as he whipped out one of his swords and swung it right at her head.

The next instant was very crowded. Alias was shoved away from the Autobot samurai and stumbled, nearly falling to the floor. When she caught her balance again, the other Autobots were in a frozen tableau around Drift–Optimus in front of her with his ion blaster pressed to Drift's face, Prowl holding Drift's sword and helping Inferno to pin his arms behind his back, and Wheeljack and Ratchet staring at all of them in shock. "Wait, Prime!" Drift said, standing perfectly still. "Look!"

He jerked his chin toward Alias. Everyone turned and she took half a step back, disconcerted to suddenly be the center of such intense scrutiny, but Ratchet actually smiled. "Oh, I see," he said approvingly. "Good idea, Drift."

Optimus slowly lowered his gun and let his own battle-mode recede. The others took that as their cue to let go of the green bot. " _Not_  a good idea, Drift," he growled.

"Well, maybe not, but you have to admit that it was effective," Ratchet said soothingly.

"Forgive me, Prime, Alias," Drift said as he accepted his sword back from Prowl and sheathed it. "If I had warned you, it would not have worked."

Alias finally looked down at herself and saw what they were talking about. Thick armor plates interlocked over her chest and limbs and her right hand was gone, the sword taking its place. She reached up with her other hand and touched her face to find a shield similar to Prime's covering everything from the eyes down.  _She'd accessed her battle-mode!_  "What do I look like?" she asked, her voice coming out a little deeper due to the shield.

"See for yourself," Wheeljack said, offering her his handheld.

She stared at the video feed of herself for a moment before saying, "Whoa, guys. I look dangerous! I'm a little scared of me right now."

Yet again, Bumblebee broadcast a loud wolf-whistle. Optimus ignored it but Crosshairs elbowed him and muttered, "Keep it up, genius, and see what it gets you. He hasn't put his gun away yet."

" _I ain't skeert o' that guy,"_  Bumblebee said defiantly.

Crosshairs held up his hands, clearly giving up. "Don't say no one warned you."

Alias tuned them out, feeling her battle-mode receding as the adrenaline rush from the perceived threat faded. The extra armor-plates slid away as her sword retracted, and she felt the face-shield fold itself back and into her jaw. But more than that, as she concentrated on the physical movements, she finally felt the tiny, subtle tug of the cog triggering them.

"Oh," she breathed, hardly aware that she was speaking aloud. " _There_  you are." She concentrated on that impossible-to-describe sensation of the cog working– _a new limb moving, a new dimension accessed_ –both comparisons were close, yet at the same time not right at all. She suddenly felt how the cog was connected to every part of her, and how every single part that made Alias was interconnected.

And now she knew what she'd been doing wrong. She'd been thinking of Alias in the same way she'd thought of her human body–she knew the pieces were all there, but she wasn't conscious of them most of the time. Everything worked on its own. Organs and nerves and muscle fibers didn't need her explicit attention, even when that fight-or-flight reflex kicked in. Every part of her body did what it was supposed to do automatically.

Transformers weren't like that, she realized now. She was abruptly, clearly aware of every piece of her robot body, each circuit and sheet of metal, down to the tiniest screw and bolt. A lot of its normal functions were indeed running without her explicit attention, but if she concentrated, she could now sense the potential to consciously manipulate all of them. She felt like she was made of joints, every single bit of her moveable, and now she could feel how to use the cog to tell them what she wanted them to do.

And what she wanted to do was re-enter battle mode again.

Recalling the face-shield into place only took her an instant. She laughed triumphantly and triggered her sword again, then retracted it. Next she concentrated on only moving her chest armor–it slid over her with a mechanical whir, then a  _clang_  when the plates interlocked. "Oh, this is freaking awesome!" she crowed, pulling everything back and then returning to full battle-mode all at once.

Optimus looked nearly as proud of her success as she was as the other Autobots applauded. He glanced down at Drift and finally stowed his gun. "All right, it was a good idea," he admitted, "but still… don't do it again."

The samurai bowed. "Understood,  _sensei_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally watched some Transformers Prime episodes and wow, Starscream really *does* like to torture humans with a tazer, that scumbot. But I've gotta say, the nicknames are just... no. If anyone calls my Wheeljack "Jackie," he's gonna step on them. Just... no. No.


	14. I Like Big Bots

Alias retracted the battle-mask and armor again and grinned triumphantly at them. "That's just insanely cool. When do I get to pick my vehicle mode, guys?" she asked, all but bouncing with excitement.

Ratchet exchanged a look with Optimus, who nodded his permission. "Right now, if you want," the medic said. "You just need to decide what you want to be and we can have Sky Spy find and scan one for you to copy."

She spun around and grabbed Prime's hands. He couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm. "This is so exciting! So what do you think, Optimus? Any ideas?"

"You could scan a semi-trailer," Prime suggested. "Then I could pull you."

She raised an eyebrow, decidedly unimpressed, and released his hands. "Yeah, and  _that's_  not happening," she said dryly, then glanced at the others. "Let's hear from someone else."

Skyfire was tapping away on his handheld. "Something big," he said, scrolling through options. "Perhaps a dump truck, or maybe some kind of motor home. Your mass is much greater than that of the average Autobot, after all."

Cade and Tessa both facepalmed. "Should we save them?" he muttered to his daughter.

"Maybe Optimus will save himself," she whispered back. "Surely he knows better than to agr–"

"Yes," Optimus agreed, and Tessa groaned. "You're quite large for a female Autobot."

"Oh, thank you so  _very_  much." Alias had her hands on her hips now. "My alt-form should be a giant Winnebago to match my great big ass, that's what you're saying?"

Optimus opened his mouth to answer her, but Cade jumped up and spoke over him before the Autobot could dig his grave any deeper. "No, no, no, of course he's not saying that, Alias," he called loudly as he jogged over. When he got close, he looked up at Prime and said more quietly, "Optimus, man-to-man? You need to stop talking right now."

Optimus glanced down, clearly confused. "But I–"

"No, really, Cade's right," Alias said, tapping her foot now. "Listen to the smart human."

"I simply think it would be best if she didn't attract anyone's attention," Optimus persisted, and Cade covered his face with one hand.

"Optimus, did you forget that you just gave her a sword?" he groaned.

Tessa had joined them now and she and Alias exchanged a look that spoke eloquently of the idiocy of men. Then Tessa grinned coldly. "Teach him a lesson, sister."

Alias shot Optimus a narrow-eyed glare. "Oh, trust me," she murmured. "I plan to."

She went completely still except for the rapid movements of her eyes, the flickering light just visible beneath the metal lids. "Alias?" Optimus said after a few seconds, but she ignored him. He looked at Wheeljack and Ratchet in concern when she didn't move for nearly a full minute. "What's she doing?"

The medic tapped on his handheld. "She's accessing a great deal of data from the internet," Ratchet said, frowning. "I can't tell what she's downlo–"

Suddenly Alias smiled wickedly and opened her eyes. "You want inconspicuous, Optimus?" she said sweetly, backing away from the group. Prime glanced down at Cade, who held up his hands in the universal  _dude, you're on your own_  sign, but she didn't wait for him to answer. "I'll give you  _inconspicuous_."

And then she transformed. All the Autobots took a startled step back as she shifted. It wasn't fast, but half a minute later, a futuristic, charcoal-grey fighter jet unlike anything Cade had ever seen stood where she had been. Its sleek body was so smooth it looked almost organic. The curved canopy of the empty single-pilot cockpit was emblazoned with an Autobot symbol etched into the glass. No weapons hung beneath the wings, but the jet looked menacing and dangerous and completely deadly even without them.

Cade had to cover his mouth to stop himself from laughing at the looks on the Autobots' faces. Every single one, Optimus included, stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the jet, completely gobsmacked. Tessa had no such restraint, however, and laughed right out loud. "Oh, Anna, that's fantastic!" she cheered, clapping.

Wheeljack recovered first–perhaps because he didn't have a jaw to drop. He walked over and stared at the jet in complete shock, even looking beneath it as if half expecting Alias to be hiding there. "You–how did you  _do_ that?" he finally asked in disbelief. "And what  _is_  that? I've never seen a jet like that–you didn't even scan that!"

The watching Autobots were also on their feet now, and within moments, they'd encircled her. "I don't know what it is but I  _like_  it," Sideswipe said, clearly awed.

"Damn, talk about air power," Hoist said, whistling low.

Prowl nodded emphatically. "That thing looks  _ferocious_."

"Impressive indeed," Drift breathed.

Alias stayed in the fighter-jet form for another moment as though ensuring that she'd made her point, and then she shifted back. It took her a little longer than it had to transform into the jet as she adjusted for the different parts, but after a moment she had her limbs back and she stood up. The canopy slid back and settled between her shoulderblades. The jet's wings stretched up behind her like an eagle's wings for a second before breaking apart and folding down around her into a long duster. It fit closely around her upper body and flared slightly at her hips, somehow managing to make her form look even more feminine and graceful than she had without it.

The last few pieces finally settled and Alias glanced at Crosshairs. "I hope you don't mind the imitation. I like your coat," she said with a little wink.

Crosshairs stared for a moment, mouth working soundlessly, before he finally managed something that sounded like, "Guh-hng."

Cade caught Tessa's eye and hid a grin. "And there's that  _flustered_  you were looking for," he whispered to his daughter, and Tessa nodded, giggling.

"What  _was_  that plane?" Wheeljack asked her again. "And how the hell did you transform into something you didn't scan?"

Alias smoothed a hand over her new coat, admiring it for a moment before reaching over and plucking Wheeljack's tablet out of his unresisting hands. She studied herself approvingly as she answered them. "The jet is a classified experimental fighter. I hacked into DARPA and downloaded the specs. The internet connection was very useful, by the way. Thanks for that." Alias gave Wheeljack his handheld back, clearly very pleased with herself, and finally turned to face the still-frozen Optimus. "It's a stealth fighter–it has a radar signature the size of a sparrow," she told him smugly. "Is that inconspicuous enough for you?"

Prime continued just staring wide-eyed at her and Cade had to muffle another laugh. As tongue-tied as Crosshairs had been, he was practically eloquent when compared to Optimus, who appeared to have completely forgotten that words existed. Cade couldn't blame him, though. If even  _he_  thought Alias' jet-mode was hot and that the new jacket made her bot form look sexy, the poor Autobot had to be practically short-circuited.

Alias smiled at Prime's continued inability to speak and looked back at Wheeljack. "I don't know how to make a scan or what to do with one, but I've been reading schematics my entire professional life. Building from those is second nature to me by now. It just made sense to transform off one."

"You shouldn't be able to do that," Ratchet said weakly.

"Don't tell her what else she can't do," Wheeljack jumped in. "I'd like to see what she comes up with next."

Alias walked up to Prime and stopped right in front of him with her hands on her hips. "Well? Aren't you going to say anything?" she asked. When he still didn't speak, she reached out and knocked on his forehead. "Hello! Anybody in there?"

Inferno snickered when Optimus just shook his head mutely. "I think you broke him."

"I don't know how he's not kicking us all out of the room right now," Crosshairs agreed, finally finding his own voice. "Alias, that was… amazing." She smiled happily at him and he waved his hands as if warding it off. "Don't you smile at me like that, girl. I'm not the one who enjoys poking the bear."

Proving his point, Bee wolf-whistled again. "Hey Prime, if you're not gonna kick us out, any chance I can kick  _you_  out?" he said hopefully. "Cuz I wouldn't mind getting–"

That finally broke Optimus out of his stunned immobility. His head whipped around and he pierced Bee with a glare. "ENOUGH," he snapped. "Show some respect!"

Bee stumbled back, waving his hands frantically. "Just kidding, just kidding! I'm not serious at all, Prime." Then he paused. "Unless she's interested," he added hopefully, and squeaked with alarm when Prime's battle-mask came up with a sudden clang.

"Told you so," Crosshairs muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "Nice knowing you, Bee."

Alias cupped Prime's chin in one hand and turned him back to face her. "At least Bee's complimenting me," she said pointedly. "I'm still waiting to hear your reaction."

His face shield retracted. He took her hands and held her arms out so he could admire her from head to toe. Alias turned for him, giving him the full view, and Optimus shook his head slowly. "I don't think I can give you my reaction in public," he murmured, pulling her in closer and putting his hands on her waist. "Crosshairs is right. That was absolutely amazing."

"And you wanted me to be a trailer _,_ " she said, punching his shoulder, but she didn't push him away and Cade could tell she was pleased. "A freaking  _trailer!"_

"I am deeply sorry. I see now that I was wrong and I will never suggest such a thing ever again," Prime replied immediately.

"There you go," Cade said approvingly while the Autobots laughed. "You're getting it now."

"For future reference, Optimus," Tessa advised, "never tell a woman that you don't want anyone to notice her. You might as well challenge her to look as hot as possible."

Optimus nodded, still clearly a little stunned. "I'm learning," he said, looking Alias up and down again. She smiled, enjoying his obvious approval. "And I can't say that I'm displeased to be taught this lesson. You look very,  _very_ good, Alias."

She reached up and tapped his nose. "That's much better," she teased. "You're a quick study."

Ratchet fumbled his handheld, caught it, and cleared his throat. "All right, then," he said, sounding like someone trying to get things back on-track. "You should, ah, probably try doing that again. Practicing, I mean. Do you want to shift into the jet again?"

Alias laughed but nodded and stepped away from Prime. He seemed a little reluctant to let her go but finally allowed it, much to the watching Autobots' amusement. She stopped when she was about twenty feet away from him and closed her eyes again, concentrating. It only took a few seconds before the long drape of her coat shifted and rose, flaring up from her shoulders into those angelic wings again. They trembled there for a moment, then folded down and out as the rest of the transformation took hold. From there, it wasn't long until her transition into the sleek stealth fighter was complete.

Ratchet and Wheeljack started scanning various areas of the plane, talking quietly to themselves, then had her shift back to her robot form. Optimus took a knee, seeming content just to watch as the other Autobots returned to their places by the wall. Cade moved over to Prime and joined him in admiring Alias as she transformed into the fighter jet and back yet again. "Those wings are really something," he said when Wheeljack had her pause the transformation there and attempt to move them independently.

"Yes, they truly are," Optimus agreed quietly. "I don't think I've ever seen any transformation that is quite so beautiful. Anna always did have an artist's eye."

Cade smiled. "Now that's the kind of thing you should tell her next time you're alone," he suggested. Then he paused. "You know, with all this testing, are you ever going to  _get_  any time alone with her? Well, I know you're spending time together, but what about when she's Alias?"

Optimus shifted a little. "It is important to ensure that Alias is fully functional and that Anna is safe in the link," he said, but although it was clear that he was trying to sound nonchalant, Cade wasn't fooled. He heard the frustration in Prime's voice loud and clear.

"Okay, man, you've really gotta do something about that," he said. "I know she's excited about Alias and who can blame her, but the main reason she's excited is that Alias makes her like  _you._  I mean, you two were apart for how long before this?"

Optimus didn't even pause to think. "Three years, two months, and nineteen days."

Cade whistled low. "Optimus, I'm gonna give you some unsolicited advice," he said. "Get out of here and spend some time with her, the sooner the better. Take a day off from the testing and go for a walk outside or something–she hasn't been outside since she got here. Show her a sunset or look at the stars or anything really, it doesn't matter. Just do something that's just the two of you." Optimus finally looked down at him and Cade nodded toward the Autobots who were still watching her every move. "You've got a dozen Autobots over there who would love to be in your shoes right now. She could take her pick and you know it," he said quietly. "But she picked  _you_. Make her know that she made the right choice."

Optimus was quiet for a long moment, continuing to watch her with the scientists–she had reentered battle mode now, the plates of her coat sliding down to cover her body and interlock into armor–before he finally nodded. "I will consider your advice, Cade," he replied. Then Perceptor hurried over to the group around Alias and they all started talking excitedly, and Optimus made a face. "If I can get her away from  _them_  for five minutes, that is," he grumbled, and Cade laughed and tapped his chin, pretending to be puzzled.

"Hmm, what's that thing they always say after your name again? I can't remember… oh, wait, it was Optimus…  _Prime_ , wasn't it?"

Optimus chuckled and glanced down at him. "You're suggesting that I abuse my authority and interrupt a valid scientific experiment for purely selfish reasons."

Cade grinned. "I can tell you're warming up to the idea."

The big Autobot laughed. "It does have its merits," he admitted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's interested-and I know you are-Anna's plane is based off the F/A-XX. You can find pictures on the google. It is badass as hell and if I could be an Autobot, I would be that jet SO HARD!


	15. Of Course It's Not Fair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all go to youtube and search for a clip called "G1: Decepticon Energon Beach Party." Trust me. If you haven't seen it before now, your life as a Transformers fan is not complete. ENERGY! *hic*

Their conversation broke off when Perceptor waved Optimus over. "Excuse me," he said to the human, and got up to join the scientists. "Yes, Perceptor?"

"We are excited by the possibilities of Alias being able to transform from downloaded blueprints," the scientist said as Ratchet continued to talk Alias through yet another transformation, "but we would like to see if she can transform from a scan, as well. We don't have an appropriate vehicle nearby, but your alt-form is approximately the correct size for her mass. Would you mind?"

Optimus raised an eyebrow, a little surprised at the request. Scanning another Transformer and taking on their alt-form was something of a taboo. "Sky Spy can't find an appropriate vehicle to scan for her?"

"We would like to show her how to create the scan, too," he explained.

Alias shifted back from the jet–she had gotten noticeably faster at it–and turned to face them as her wings folded down around her into the close-fitting coat again. She shook her head when she got a look at Prime's face. "I told you guys that imitating Optimus was a creepy idea. I don't blame him for saying no," she said, walking over to stand beside him. "Besides, I kind of like my new look. I don't really want to change it so soon."

"You wouldn't necessarily be stuck with a new look," Perceptor persisted, but Ratchet was looking at his handheld computer and already shaking his head.

"Actually, I think we should postpone testing her on a new alt-form until another day," he said. "Scanning takes quite a bit of power and she's already used a considerable amount in assimilating the jet alt-form. I don't want to risk exhausting her again like she was yesterday. Besides, too many transformations with a brand new cog can burn it out. It's best if we move on to other things."

"We could give her a dose of Energon," Wheeljack suggested. When Prime and the others looked at him with clear surprise, he shrugged and said, "We're going to have to see how she reacts to it at some point, and as Ratchet said, she's used a lot of power this morning. Why not try it now?"

"Is there some danger to it?" Alias asked, frowning a little bit when everyone hesitated and exchanged loaded glances. "I mean, obviously I've worked with it enough to know that it's a volatile substance and should be handled carefully, but I wasn't aware there was any danger to you when you consume it."

“No, no, it’s not that kind of risk,” Ratchet reassured her. “It’s just that Energon is a very concentrated energy source, and the effect will be much more potent than recharging Alias the way we’ve been doing it so far. Some bots react a little unpredictably to the influx of energy, that’s all.”

“Sometimes there’s some dizziness and loss of coordination,” Perceptor said when Alias still looked lost. “Maybe a little giddiness or confusion.”

Optimus rested his hand on the small of her back and bent to murmur to her. "What they're trying to say is that it might get you drunk."

Alias stared at him for a second before bursting out laughing. "You aren't serious!"

"Oh, I am very serious," Optimus said, grinning now. Cade didn't think he'd seen Optimus smile as much in the last two years as he had in this one day. "Remind me sometime to show you the footage Powerglide took of Megatron and his Decepticons when they overcharged on Energon."

"It's comedy gold," Wheeljack agreed.

She still looked as though she wasn't quite sure whether she believed them or not. "Am I really likely to get drunk and embarrass myself?" she asked, torn between hesitation and curiosity. "Because there's quite an audience here right now and I usually try to keep my drunken misbehavior a little less public."

"That's a good point," Prime said, nodding. "Perhaps we should do that experiment in a more… controlled setting."

"He just wants to get her drunk later when they're alone," Tessa whispered, grinning.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Crosshairs isn't the only one feeling a bit flustered by her new look," Cade replied under her breath.

Tessa laughed, but then she frowned. "What _do_ they do for that, anyway?" she asked, and he immediately shook his head.

"I'm not asking. That's more information than I want or need."

"Or maybe we can just work on teaching you to conserve the Energon you already have," Wheeljack was suggesting now. They all gathered around him as he held up his handheld. "You're doing better than we ever would've expected this soon, but your energy use still isn't as efficient as it is for one of us. You can see here where you're wasting power during your transformations." He showed a slowed replay of her most recent transformation with a false-color overlay that highlighted the energy loss he was talking about. "There, see? You're losing energy from your extremities."

Alias studied the video closely. "Okay, I think I see what you mean," she said after replaying it a few times. "So what you want me to do is kind of concentrate my Energon more centrally, keep it closer to my core instead of in my limbs?"

"Well, sort of," Wheeljack said, but Alias had already started to focus. He shrugged and said, "Teletraan, give me another false-color scan, real-time." He stared at the screen for a second, then shook his head. "No, not like that–I don't think that's right."

A high whine, just on the edge of hearing, started to fill the air. "What is that noise?" Ratchet asked, frowning and cocking his head. "Is that–is that coming from her?"

"What's going on?" Prime demanded.

"Alias!" Wheeljack shouted, dropping his handheld and grabbing her arm as the whine rapidly intensified. "Stop!"

Alias didn't have time to answer. Ratchet glanced down at Wheeljack's handheld and suddenly shoved Optimus away from her, forcefully putting his body between Prime and Alias as Wheeljack dragged her the other way. Everyone started shouting at once–"Prime, hit the kill-switch!" Ratchet yelled at the same moment that Perceptor shouted, "Everyone, take cover!" and Wheeljack screamed, "Shut her down!"

Prime triggered the kill-switch immediately. Alias collapsed in an instant, but not before the whine abruptly hit a near-deafening pitch and flames burst from her chest. Inferno quickly transformed and rushed over as that high-pitched scream abruptly wound down, and he extinguished the flames as quickly as they'd appeared.

Prime grabbed Wheeljack and Ratchet and started dragging them toward the door. "Report on the way!" he demanded.

It only took seconds for Prime and the scientists to reach the lab. Skyfire was bending over Anna's table, but Prime was able to see at once that she was sitting up and holding her head. "What happened?" she moaned when she heard them come in.

Optimus went to his knees beside the table and reached for her. "Are you all right?" he asked, hating the evidence that the kill-switch had hurt her again.

She nodded but stopped almost immediately, wincing. "I think I'm all right," she said, leaning into his hand. "Why did you shut me down?"

"You were pulling all your Energon reserves toward your spark!" Ratchet said too-loudly. "Why would you do such a thing?"

"I thought that's what Wheeljack told me to do!" she protested. "He said to concentrate–"

"No, Anna, that's not what we wanted at all! Vector Sigma, what you did… that was the closest thing to a real self-destruct that I've ever seen," Wheeljack said, clearly shaken.

Prime's head whipped around. _"What?"_ he demanded.

Wheeljack barely noticed in his own shock. "We only wanted you to stop the small energy leaks during your transformations, not try to compress all your Energon behind your spark like that," he said unsteadily. "Optimus only barely shut you down in time."

"Another few seconds and the chain reaction would've been unstoppable. You would've detonated," Ratchet added, running a hand over his face. "We've got the shutdown safeguard in case of damage, but we don't know if it would be fast enough to disconnect you in the case of a catastrophic failure like that. Don't _ever_ do that again."

Anna swallowed hard, stunned, as she went pale as a sheet. "Holy shit," she whispered, which was exactly what Optimus was thinking. She put her head on her knees for a moment, breathing slowly, before straightening up again. "Okay, you guys need to communicate a lot more clearly in the future. Maybe you should give me a list of things that might freaking _kill me_ before I decide to try them by accident!"

"We're doing our best, but you're doing things that we've never even thought about!" Ratchet protested before Optimus could add his own scolding. "We're all in uncharted territory. How can we warn you not to do things that we don't know are possible?"

Prime curled his fingers around her and felt her trembling. "Did I hurt anyone?" she asked worriedly.

"No, Anna," Ratchet replied. "Prime stopped you in time."

"And Alias? Was she damaged?"

"I'm not sure how badly, but yes," Wheeljack answered, and she pressed her hands to her mouth. "It's a good thing Inferno was there to put the fire out right away. Perceptor should be able to give us a damage report soon so we can start planning repairs."

"Maybe we shouldn't–" Optimus began, but Anna cut in before he could finish.

"Don't you dare say we shouldn't repair her," Anna interrupted. She sounded on the verge of tears. "How can you even think it, Optimus?"

"Of course I'm thinking it!" he said, surprised that she wasn't thinking the same thing after what had just happened. "Anna, you nearly died!"

"And how many times have you nearly died?" she demanded, shoving away from his hand. "Or any of the rest of you, for that matter? Isn't danger part of being an Autobot?"

"This is not the same thing!" Prime shot back. "Our danger comes from war, not from an elective experiment. You cannot draw a parallel between the two!"

"I'm not exactly an uninvolved bystander in that war, you know," she persisted. Then she took a slow breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was calmer but no less passionate. "Look, I'm not denying that what just happened was dangerous. I didn't understand what I was doing and it almost went very wrong, but the safety protocols that we added in _worked_. I didn't explode and I didn't die or kill anyone else, and I don't want to abandon Alias because I made a miscalculation!"

"Optimus–" Ratchet said, but Prime cut him off.

"No! Not a word," he snapped, already knowing that the medic planned to come in on Anna's side. "From the beginning, I said that we would only do this so long as it was _safe_. What just happened was as far from safe as it is possible to be! I will not risk you for a science project," he gritted, clenching his free hand into a fist as he remembered that rising whine. "Do you truly want me to be so cavalier with your life, Anna?"

Anna sat very still, and when she closed her eyes, tears spilled down her cheeks. "I want you to give me a chance to learn from my mistakes," she said, gripping the edge of the stretcher very hard with the effort she was making to speak calmly. "I want you not to give up yet. I want you to understand that Alias is more than a _science project_ to me! This is something I _am_ willing to risk my life for." She pressed a fist to her chest. "I want you to respect that it's my life to risk, Optimus."

Optimus groaned, very aware of the three scientists watching them. "That isn't fair, Anna. You're asking me to stand by and do nothing while you endanger everything you are!"

"Yes, I am, and of course it's not fair," she said, surprising him as she so often did. "Life isn't fair. Why should I be?"

Optimus sighed and hung his head. No, she wasn't fighting fair, but he knew she hadn't used the biggest weapons in her arsenal, either. She hadn't said that his presence in her life had put her at risk since the day she'd found him and saved his life. She hadn't said that despite her banishment, she'd not only inked an Autobot symbol on her skin, she'd lived up to what it meant. She hadn't reminded him that the entire reason she'd put herself at risk by restarting her Energon research was because she was still trying to help them.

She hadn't pointed out that she'd endured torture for him and hadn't once considered saving herself by betraying him. She hadn't argued that she'd lost her sight and nearly her life protecting him and his Autobots, or that Alias was the very least that they all owed her for that loyalty.

Most of all, she hadn't said that he'd broken her heart when he'd sent her away over her objections. Of all the decisions he'd made, Optimus regretted that one most.

He ran his hand over his face. She'd forgiven him for even that. If he took Alias away from her like this, would she be able to forgive him again? He didn't know. But much as he wanted to give her anything she asked for, the memory of Alias bursting into flames still chilled him.

If he'd been a single second later with the kill-switch, would she even be here to have this argument with him?

"Put yourself in my place, Anna, and think about what you're asking of me. Could you stand by while I risked my life? Could you simply watch and do nothing?" he asked at last. "Could you bear it?"

"I _have_ , Optimus," Anna cried. "Absolutely every time you've ever rolled out for battle and left me behind, I've done it! _Every single time_ I watched you go and waited and worried and knew that there was _nothing_ I could do to help you, I've done it." She wiped her cheeks, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter but no less strained. "I know exactly what I'm asking of you, and believe me, I know exactly how much it hurts."

Those words hit him right between the eyes. "Oh, Anna," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. It's who you are, and I knew what I was getting into." She looked up–still not directly at him–and squared her shoulders, small and stubborn and so brave he could hardly stand it. "I have no illusions about the danger. I am fully aware of what I could lose, and I'm telling you that what we could gain is worth it to me." She paused, then added very quietly, "It's your turn to stay behind and watch me. I'm not asking you as my Prime, Optimus. I know that this isn't easy for you, but I'm choosing to take these risks, and I need you to _let me_."

And there was nothing he could say to refute that, nothing at all.

"The safety mechanisms did work, Optimus," Ratchet said hesitantly as the silence stretched out. "And Perceptor just sent us the preliminary damage report–Alias wasn't seriously harmed. Nothing was damaged that can't be repaired."

Optimus closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, haunted by his promise to treat her as his equal. "We are going to pause," he finally said, hoping he wouldn't regret this decision. "I want all of you to take a few days and run through every scenario you can come up with–you too, Anna," he added when she looked up sharply. "I want you to find every situation that even has a hint of a _chance_ of causing something like what happened today, and figure out how to prevent any other potential disasters before they happen."

Anna bit her lip, her sightless eyes very wide. "You're not shutting me down?" she asked hopefully.

"No, Anna, I'm not shutting you down. How could I, after that?" he replied, and she sagged with relief. Very, very carefully, he stroked one fingertip over her hair. It was too soft for him to really be able to feel it, but he knew it was a human gesture of comfort, and since he was unable to hold her now the way he did after she'd attacked Starscream, it was the best he could do. "Does it get easier with time?" he asked softly. "Watching?"

"Never," she whispered. "It's always going to be awful. But Optimus, I trusted you not to take unnecessary chances, and to be as safe as you could. Trust me the same way."

He hung his head for a moment, then looked at Ratchet, Skyfire, and Wheeljack in turn, holding each of their gazes. "I will watch and worry from the sidelines, but I will not do so quietly. She may be willing to accept these kinds of risks, but I am not. Use this pause wisely and _make it safer_. Am I clear?"

"Understood, Prime," Skyfire replied at once.

"We'll take care of her, Prime," Wheeljack chimed in. He nudged Anna's leg gently with one knuckle. "We're kinda fond of you too, kid."

"We're glad to do it," Ratchet said. "Now go on, Anna, get out of here and go lie down for a while–that's an order. I know the kill-switch is rough on you. Rest for a while and we'll start our brainstorming later, all right?" She nodded and Optimus carefully picked her up and carried her out.

Inferno and Crosshairs were walking down the hall, carrying Alias–still steaming a little and smelling strongly of burned metal–between them, with Perceptor fussing over the deactivated bot alongside. Cade and Tessa followed a little behind them. "Are you all right, Anna?" Tessa asked when Optimus came out with her.

"Yes," she said from her perch in his hand. "I'm sorry for all the excitement."

"What happened?" Cade asked.

She shook her head ruefully. "Let's just say that I discovered the self-destruct and it isn't actually in my left earlobe," she replied, and before Cade could get more information from her, Optimus had taken her down the hall and away.

"Wait, what?" he said, looking around at the other Autobots. "Self-destruct? She was joking, right? Someone tell me she was joking."

"Not even a little bit," Perceptor said gloomily, shaking his head at the damage. Then he paused as an idea occurred to him. "You know what, Cade, we could use your help with these repairs. We've got a lot of burnt wires to strip and replace."

"Let me just get Tessa back to school first," Cade said. He wasn't thrilled about the circumstances, but he'd be lying if he said he hadn't been itching to get hands-on involved in this build for days now. "Then I'm all yours."

"I'll drive you," Crosshairs offered, shifting his grip on Alias' legs. "Come on, Inferno, help me get her on the table."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those who take the time to review! Truly, it means more to me than I can say.


	16. A Prime Like Optimus

The trip to deliver Tessa back to her campus was uneventful. On the way back, Cade watched the city roll by out the window just as he had the night he and Bumblebee had found Anna in the dumpster and brought her back to base. So much had happened since her arrival that it was hard to believe it had only been a week since they'd rescued her.

"It's been one helluva week, Crosshairs," he mused as the sunset painted the sky in shades of red and gold. "I don't think I've lived through such a crazy few days since I first found Optimus."

"You're not kidding," Crosshairs replied, his voice coming from the speakers. "And you should brace yourself 'cuz next week's gonna be even crazier."

"Oh yeah?"

"Oh most definitely yeah," the Autobot replied with certainty. "Alias has been an excellent distraction but Prime's gonna take us out hunting soon, I guarantee it."

"I don't think you could call her a distraction," Cade countered.

Crosshairs laughed low. "Oh, she's got Prime distracted, all right. Otherwise he'd have been knocking on Megatron's door days ago. Haven't you noticed that every instant he's not doing something with her, he's tracking the Decepticons on Teletraan or sending us out on scouting missions? He's just spoiling for a fight."

"I know, but that's not what I meant. No one could deny that Anna and Alias have got him twisted up in knots, but I don't think you picked the right word for it." He smiled out the window at the memory of how tongue-tied Optimus had been earlier, and how he seemed unable to resist the compulsion to touch her anytime she was near him. "I've never seen him act this way. It's a lot more serious than a  _distraction_."

"Of course it's serious. It always was," Crosshairs agreed. "Why do you think the eggheads built Alias for him in the first place?"

"For her, you mean."

"No, Cade, I said what I meant."

Cade stared at the dash for a moment, trying to decide if the Autobot was winding him up. "That's not right. What about her head injury? They built Alias so Anna could heal," he said slowly. "Resting her brain so she could get her vision back, right?"

Crosshairs snorted. "Yeah, that's what they came up with to sell the idea to Prime and it might even be true enough, but I promise you, that was never the real reason."

Cade shook his head, chuckling as he decided that Crosshairs had to be kidding. "So, you're saying that they went to all the trouble to build Alias just so Optimus could have a girlfriend? Nice try, but I don't buy Wheeljack and Ratchet as giant robot Cupids."

But to his surprise, Crosshairs didn't laugh with him. The bot was quiet for a moment as he drove carefully through a construction zone. "You may not know this, Cade, but I've served under three Primes in my life–Zeta Prime, Sentinel Prime, and now Optimus Prime," he said when he was able to accelerate again. "And a Prime is not exactly what you probably think it is from only knowing Optimus. A Prime commands the Autobots during war, yes, but they also have the right to rule over every single facet of our lives. There is no law but the word of the Prime. There is no freedom but what the Prime allows. Can you understand that?"

Cade tried to imagine Optimus cracking down with an iron fist like that. The thought wouldn't fit in his brain. "Sounds like an ancient king, or maybe a dictator," he mused. "We have a saying here–absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"It can be that way, yeah," Crosshairs agreed. "But no matter what, our duty as Autobots is the same. We obey and protect our Prime, period, no discussion. Our lives are theirs to command or sacrifice. Well, Zeta and Sentinel were the kind of Primes who ruled like one of your dictatorial old kings, but Optimus… from the start, he has worked to earn our loyalty. He leads from the front and values his subordinates instead of seeing us as pawns. That alone would be enough to set him apart, but what's more, he not only allows dissent, he  _listens_  to us when we disagree with him. We don't merely follow him–we respect him. Should anything threaten him, we would all die for him. Not because it's our duty, but because it would be an honor to die for a Prime like Optimus."

"I know," Cade said, and he did. Optimus was the kind of leader who didn't come around very often. There was no doubt that his Autobots loved him–and they weren't alone. There was a reason Cade had stayed with them, after all.

"He has never asked one of us to do something that he wouldn't do himself, or ordered us to do something for his own personal gain, even though both are his right as Prime. He could have us conquer this world and build him an empire, and most Primes would do just that, but Optimus is just… he's different," Crosshairs went on. "In fact, he doesn't ask for anything for personal gain, ever. As far as I know, he's the only Prime who hasn't wanted to expand Cybertronian rule in the universe. He's all you know, so I'm not sure you can comprehend how incredible that is."

"No, I understand," Cade said. "He's not as ambitious as his predecessors."

Crosshairs made a frustrated noise. "No, you still don't get it." He paused, and when he spoke again, his tone was very solemn. "Look, Zeta was a madman who designated half of us as  _Disposables_  and sent dissenters to an institute where their brains were physically altered to bring them in line, and while Sentinel seemed like a breath of fresh air after that, he was willing to see us all dead, humanity enslaved, and your world destroyed to execute his master plan for Cybertron. And they were  _Autobots_ , not Decepticons."

"Wow," Cade breathed, but Crosshairs wasn't done.

"Being an Autobot doesn't mean a Prime can't be ruthless and brutal. Understand that we haven't conquered your Earth not because we  _can't_ , Cade–believe me when I tell you that if Prime gave that order, humanity would be our slaves inside of a month despite anything your military could do. The one and only reason we haven't conquered your world is because Optimus doesn't  _want_  it. He values freedom over power. His ambition is only to coexist in peace."

Cade whistled low. He'd always known the Autobots were powerful, but he'd never fully appreciated that Optimus was unusual in not using that power to conquer everything in sight. "I think I've been taking him for granted," he said at last.

"All of humanity has been taking him for granted. You don't realize that your freedom is a gift he gives you every day," Crosshairs said firmly. "But we Autobots  _know_  that ours is. In all our history, there's never been a Prime like Optimus. Now think about everything I've said and tell me, is it really so hard to believe that we would go to considerable lengths to give him the only thing that he's  _ever_  seemed to want for himself?"

Cade nodded, still a bit blown-away by these revelations. "You've got a point," he conceded. "I'll do my best to help them get her back online as quickly as possible."

"Good," Crosshairs said. Now that they were out of Houston city limits, the sleek Corvette sped up. "Personally, as much fun as it is to watch Optimus acting all love-struck, I'm looking forward to finding the Decepticons and finishing this war once and for all. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's good that Anna got kidnapped and tortured, but if that was the trigger Prime needed to finally decide that his no-kill policy isn't working and do whatever it takes to kick Megatron off this planet for good, it might just be worth it."

"Don't let Optimus hear you say that," Cade warned.

"Oh, you don't need to tell me," the Autobot said, and Cade could almost hear the smile. "I'm well aware that he doesn't have much patience with anything that threatens her. Drift had to be suicidal to draw his sword on her! He's very, very lucky that Prime doesn't shoot first and ask questions later."

They arrived at Metroplex about fifteen minutes later, and Crosshairs dropped him off outside Wheeljack's lab. "Are you coming in?" Cade asked.

"No, unfortunately. I'm due to relieve Ironhide to babysit our guest," Crosshairs explained when he transformed back into his robot mode but didn't go inside. "No lie, Cade, I'd much rather help you strip wires than listen to Starscream whine for the next six hours, and I  _hate_  stripping wires." Then he grinned. "Maybe I'll take a page out of Anna's book and threaten to tear his eyes out if he doesn't shut up. It certainly worked for her!"


	17. Conjunx Endura

Cade was still laughing when he entered the lab. "Oh, Cade, good," Ratchet said when he glanced up from Alias, who was lying on the larger table with her chest half-dismantled. "We've just gotten down to the really fiddly bits. If you don't mind getting a little dirty, your smaller hands will make this go a lot faster."

"Well, that's why I'm here," he said. Perceptor lifted him onto the table beside Alias' chest, and he whistled low when he looked inside. Her entire chest cavity was wrecked. "Wow, that's a whole lot of burn damage for ten seconds of flame, guys."

"It's not the duration, it's the temperature. That was as close to an Energon detonation as I ever want to see in person," Ratchet said as he carefully disconnected her powered-down spark chamber from its armored housing. He examined it, then turned it to show Cade, Perceptor, and Wheeljack the blackened back. "Hey, look at this," he said happily, tapping it with a fingertip. "Scorched, yes, but it's not deformed at all. The alloy we used worked like a charm. We should show this to Prime, don't you think, Wheeljack?"

The engineer didn't even look up from where he was scraping melted rubber off another part. "Oh, yeah, that's a fantastic idea," he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. He imitated the medic. " _Look, Optimus, here's your conjunx endura's spark housing. It's all burned to hell from when she nearly exploded in a fiery conflagration of death, but at least the new alloy didn't melt. Isn't that great?_  Make sure you give me a heads-up beforehand so I can watch his reaction from another continent, will you?"

Cade snorted a laugh as Ratchet tapped the glass-and-metal sphere against his hand. "And then there's also the possibility that we should never, ever,  _ever_  show this to Prime, and let us never speak of it again," he agreed dryly, setting the part aside.

Perceptor pointed at the twisted, blackened mass of wiring that had been concealed behind the spark housing. "Okay, Cade, see all that ruined wiring in there?" he asked. "We need all of that removed so we can see what of the circuitry and chips can be salvaged. Then the contact points will need to be cleaned and new wires strung. We can do it, of course, but your hands can get in the crevices much more easily. Your help would speed this up considerably."

Cade shook his head at the mess–the area he'd had pointed out seemed to be made of nothing  _but_  crevices. "That's gonna be a helluva job, Perceptor. Half the wires are completely vaporized and the rest are fused together. Listen, y'all built her in like four days. Wouldn't it be easier to just–what?"

Wheeljack had started laughing before he'd even finished. "Come on, Cade, do you really think that we could build something like this completely from scratch in less than a week? I mean really, now, you're an engineer. Didn't that strain your belief just a bit?"

"Well, how am I supposed to know how long it takes to make an Autobot?" Cade protested.

"Think of it this way," Ratchet said, looking nearly as amused as Perceptor and Wheeljack, both of whom were openly laughing now. "You humans have much less variation between models than we do and it still takes you nine months to build a new one."

"And even then, it's barely functional," Perceptor agreed.

Now that they said it, Cade felt a little foolish for not questioning any of this. "How long have you been working on this?"

"We came up with the idea of linking a human into a blank Autobot body almost four years ago–Anna, Wheeljack, Perceptor, Sparkplug, and me," Ratchet said, lifting an enormous spool of wire in one hand and hanging it from an overhead hook so he could cut lengths off easily.

"Wait,  _Anna_  was in on it?"

Wheeljack gave him an exasperated look. "Of course Anna was in on it! You didn't really think she figured out we were doing just by climbing up its leg and feeling a few parts, did you? She was instrumental in developing the energy transfer tech from the start."

Seeing the surprise on Cade's face, Ratchet chuckled. "The technology that sent Spike's mind into Autobot X didn't just fall miraculously out of the sky the day he got hurt, you know. Things like that take serious development and testing. We're good, but even we aren't quite  _that_  good."

"Autobot X was supposed to be a test run for this," Wheeljack agreed. "That's why the thing was such a mess–we didn't care what it looked like because it was just supposed to be a proof of concept. It was never going to be permanent."

"If Anna was able to control Autobot X, we were going to scale up to a full-size body," Perceptor said. "We'd already started working on this–" he indicated Alias, "–in anticipation of success."

Cade stared at him for a long moment, remembering that conversation with Crosshairs and thinking that he really shouldn't be so surprised to hear this. "But let me guess–that Decepticon attack to capture Anna threw a wrench in the plans," he said.

Perceptor nodded ruefully. "Oh, you could say that. It felt like one day we were working on this, and the next day she was halfway across the country and we were forbidden to speak of her."

"Why not tell Optimus about the project before she left?" Cade asked.

Wheeljack looked at him like he was insane. "Are you joking? He'd have lost his mind! She'd already been injured and nearly captured in the attack, and he went ballistic when she was in danger. Would you want to be the guy who then suggested we try an untested and extremely risky new technology that might erase her mind entirely?"

Perceptor shrugged. "And besides, she was already gone before we even knew what Prime was planning. Even if we'd wanted to tell him, we didn't have a chance."

"We kept working in secret after she left–none of us expected she'd be gone so long," Wheeljack went on. "We wanted to have this ready for her when she came back. We didn't shelf the link program until after Spike's bad experience with Autobot X. But even then, we didn't get rid of what we'd already built, just in case."

Ratchet nodded. "We just hid it from Prime." The medic waved a hand at Alias. "We already had her skeleton fully assembled with most of her electronics laid in years ago. When you and Bumblebee brought Anna here, pretty much all we had to do was pull her out of the back of the storage locker, dust her off, and finish up her exterior."

"But it's very flattering that you think we could come up with such a complex piece of tech so quickly," Wheeljack added, laughing again.

Cade shook his head. "You guys are really sneaky," he said. "How do you think Optimus is going to react when he finds out?"

"Oh, I'm sure some part of him suspects that there was more to this than meets the eye," Perceptor replied. "Optimus Prime is many things, but he's certainly not stupid. We always knew that it would fall to Anna to convince him to take a chance on this, and she played her part very well."

Cade shook his head again. "You all fooled me, even though I should've known better," he said ruefully. He climbed into the chest cavity and started pulling at the burned wires. Several minutes passed before something occurred to him. "Hey, Wheeljack, you called Anna something a little bit ago–something enduring?"

"Do you mean conjunx endura?" Wheeljack asked, and Cade nodded.

"Yeah, that. What's–" he started.

"I don't think you should call her that," Ratchet interrupted with a little frown.

Wheeljack gave him a look. "What, you think there's any doubt?"

"Of course not," Perceptor answered when Ratchet just went back to his work. "But it's for them to declare, not us, and neither of them has said it."

"What does that mean?" Cade asked before they could stray too far off-topic. "Is it Cybertronian for girlfriend or what?"

"Oh, hardly," Perceptor said. "You may have many girlfriends in your lifetime, but a Cybertronian will only have one conjunx endura, and then only if we are very lucky–most don't even have one. In fact, I only know of one bot who has had more than one conjunx endura, and Chromedome was a very unique case."

"I think the closest analog for humans would be a spouse, although I know that humans who have lost or rejected their mates will often bond with another. As Perceptor said, that isn't the case for us," Wheeljack said. "It's an incredibly deep connection."

Cade could understand that–he doubted he would ever stop missing Emily. Despite what Wheeljack had said about human marriages, Cade couldn't imagine ever loving anyone the way he'd loved her. "So how does it work?" he asked, thinking of Perceptor saying that Optimus hadn't said it yet. "They just announce it?"

Wheeljack nodded. "Sometimes there will be a ceremony, rather like what I understand about your weddings. Some will also wear a mark, but neither ceremony nor mark are required. It's enough just to proclaim it."

"What kind of mark?"

"Humans sometimes wear a ring to denote a bond with a spouse, yes, Cade?" Perceptor asked. Cade ran a thumb over his wedding ring, nodding despite the ache that always returned when he did so. But Perceptor continued before he could dwell on the loss. "Well, something similar for us is engraving our conjunx endura's name somewhere on our bodies. Some will even put it on their spark housing."

Cade's eyebrows rose. The spark housing was the most important thing on a bot–they could be rebuilt from almost total destruction so long as it, and their spark, survived. "That's some pretty heavy symbolism," Cade said, impressed. "More permanent than a wedding ring, that's for sure."

"Spark-bonding is rare. You're talking about a small percentage of bots who bond at all, and a tiny percentage of those who share a spark-bond," Ratchet interrupted, waving a hand as though brushing the thought away. "And it's all academic anyway. He's the Prime."

That wasn't what Cade had expected to hear at all. "What does him being the Prime have to do with any of this?" he asked, but none of the Autobots paid attention.

"Well, someone has to be the first," Wheeljack replied over his question, which was almost an answer in itself. "Why not Optimus?"

"That's enough," Ratchet cut him off firmly. He gave Wheeljack a stern look. "You leave Optimus alone about this, Wheeljack. It's not our business."

Cade looked between the robots, feeling the undercurrents even if he didn't understand them. "What am I missing here?" he asked, wondering why Primes wouldn't marry.

The engineer just shrugged and neither Ratchet or Perceptor enlightened him, either. When it became clear that no one was going to reply to his question, Cade finally resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going to get an answer. He went back to removing the destroyed wiring, his mind only partially on it–between everything Crosshairs had said, the revelation that Alias had been in the works for years, and this conjunx endura stuff, he had plenty to keep his thoughts spinning while his hands worked at the repetitive task.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conjunx endura is a canon term-if you want to have your heart broken, go look up Chromedome and Rewind in an issue called The Gloaming. Sniffle.
> 
> Edited to clarify that the engraving and spark-bonding is NOT canon. That came out of my little noggin, because reasons, that's why. DON'T QUESTION ME! *points finger threateningly*


	18. Cade Makes Some Suggestions

By the time Ratchet called a halt for the evening, Cade had cleared most of the ruined wires and circuitry out. It wasn't as much progress as he'd hoped it would be, though. Getting those out had only revealed all the clean-up they had yet to do. He'd refurbished a few machines after fires before, but obviously nothing on as large a scale as Alias, and the amount of tech they needed to tear down before they could even start the actual repairs was daunting.

He grabbed a quick shower before heading to the common area to heat something up for dinner, only to find that Anna had beaten him to it. She was just taking a foil-covered pan out of the oven when he entered. Surprisingly, Optimus was nowhere to be seen. "Hey, that smells pretty good," he said, hurrying over in case she needed help.

"Oh, Cade, I'm glad you're here. I was about to have Teletraan tell you dinner's ready. I'm pretty sure it's lasagna," Anna said, putting it down on the stovetop. "But it might be meatloaf for all I know–it's something flat and tomato-y, at any rate." She carefully closed the oven and took off the hot-mitts. "At least Teletraan can set the oven for me or God knows what kind of mess I'd make of this. I'll give you some free advice, Cade. Don't go blind. It makes cooking a real pain in the ass."

"Yeah, I can imagine," he said, making sure his response was as matter-of-fact as her statement had been. If he'd learned one thing about Anna, it was that she didn't enjoy being the recipient of sympathy. "I'm pretty sure you're still a better cook than me, though, so there's always that." She laughed as he peeled back the foil to look beneath. "And you're right–it's lasagna. How about I dish us up some since you did the cooking duty?"

"Works for me." She made her way toward the little table, hands held out before her until she touched one of the chairs and sat down with a little sigh of relief.

It was the first time he'd seen her really moving around completely independently. She was making it work, but it was clear from that sigh that she wasn't at all confident about it, and that made Prime's absence seem even stranger. "Where's your shadow?" he asked.

"He left about three hours ago. He said he was going to check on the repairs," she replied. Cade froze for an instant, hoping he hadn't just gotten Optimus in trouble with her, when she added, "You can breathe, Cade. I already knew that wasn't the only place he was going. I'm pretty sure he's checking in on Starscream and didn't want to tell me since I can't go with him right now. Wherever he went, he'll tell me when he gets back."

Cade finished making their plates and brought them to the table. He made another quick trip, this time bringing silverware and bottles of water. "Fork's at three o'clock, water's at ten," he told her, putting hers down and then taking his own seat. She nodded her thanks. "Starscream is probably relieved that you didn't go with Optimus this time. I heard you're downright terrifying as an interrogator. Video footage of you menacing him is the most wanted thing on this base right now, let me tell you. You're getting quite the reputation as a badass."

She took a bite of lasagna before answering. "Well, it worked, anyway, but I'm actually very okay with not going in with Optimus this time. I know I got lucky when I attacked him. In a real fight, he would demolish me. As good as it felt to be the scary one instead of the scared one, I don't really want to get that close to Starscream ever again."

"I'm pretty sure Optimus can make that happen for you. I doubt you need to have any further contact with Starscream if you don't want to," Cade replied reassuringly. "And anyway, he's pretty good at being the scary one when he wants to be." She nodded, then winced at the movement. He frowned. "Your head still hurting?"

"I hate that kill-switch," she muttered.

"Better than exploding, though," he pointed out, and she shrugged.

"You only say that because you haven't experienced it. From my point of view, an explosion might be a step up," she said dryly. "Tell me about Alias. What kind of damage was there? How long do you think the repairs are going to take?"

Cade filled her in on the bot's condition. She made a face when he described the state of the wiring in her bot's chest cavity. "Ugh, that is not what I wanted to hear. Cleaning all that up sounds like it's going to take a while." She gripped her fork until her knuckles went white. "Damn it, I can't do  _anything_  until she's fixed and I'm no damn good at boredom. I can't even read a book!"

He thought for a second before answering. "You know what? I think maybe you actually could help with the repairs," he said thoughtfully.

His suggestion didn't get the pleased reaction he thought it would. She made a frustrated noise and stabbed at her lasagna. "Talking with the science team only goes so far when what's really needed is hands-on teardown and refurb."

"No, I don't mean talking," Cade persisted. "Look, I've spent the afternoon pulling out all those ruined wires. Before we can replace them, we need to clean the connections, and that's something you don't need sight to do. Half of the contact points you can't see anyway because of where they are. If I was going to do it by feel, why can't you?"

Anna was quiet for a moment, clearly thinking it over. "Would this be busy-work or something that would actually be useful?" she finally asked. "Because while I would love to help, I'd much rather stay out of it and accept the boredom than get in the way."

"Actually, if you take over cleaning the contacts, I could start on some of the things that do require sight. Your help would speed things up, not slow them down," Cade replied. He wasn't entirely sure what those different things were, but after spending a few hours sitting in that burned-out chest cavity, he knew there had to be plenty of them, and it was clear that Anna needed something to do. He was certain that Optimus would agree. "Next time I talk to Wheeljack I can get his thoughts on it, if you're interested."

"Yes, do," she said, looking a little happier as she started to eat again. "Thanks, Cade."

"And now I have a question for you," Cade said. He'd held it in as long as he could and now he just had to know. "What does it feel like to transform?"

Anna laughed, then sat back for a moment, looking thoughtful. "That's really hard to describe," she said, grinning a little. Then she said, "Like some kind of super-flexible and really intense yoga, possibly in a blender. But a lot more fun than that makes it sound."

Cade tried to imagine it but gave up, laughing. "I would hope so, because that doesn't sound like much fun at all."

The rest of the meal passed quickly as she asked more detailed questions about the repairs they were doing on Alias. When he finally took the empty plates back to the sink, she asked, "So did Optimus ever actually come in? I fully expected him to demand some kind of new safeguard to stop me from doing that again."

"Not that I saw, but I was away for a couple of hours taking Tessa back to school so maybe he did and I just missed it," he replied. He rinsed the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher before returning to the table. "But the guys didn't mention adding anything new. I don't see what kind of safeguard they could come up with for that, to be honest with you. I mean, anything that impedes the free flow of Energon is going to be a problem as far as regular operation goes."

"That's what I told Optimus," Anna agreed. "And I told him that getting kill-switched and grounded for a few days while Alias gets her guts replaced is enough of a safeguard for me to remember not to do it again."

"What did he say to that?"

She suddenly grinned. "He said to stop making it sound like he spanked me." Cade nearly choked on his water and she nodded, laughing too. "He just doesn't even realize when he says something dirty, you know? And then he wants to know why I'm laughing and… yeah, it's occasionally hilarious as hell."

Cade pounded on his chest, laughing and coughing. Imagining that sentence in Prime's serious, stern voice was brain-breaking. "You forget they're aliens and then they come out with stuff like that," he agreed, thinking of the science team's opinion of babies. "So how do you explain?"

She snorted. "I don't. I've tried before and there's just no frame of reference that works–some of the Autobots seem to get innuendo, but Optimus is definitely not one of them. Before I left I had finally gotten him to where he'd just roll his eyes and drop it when I would tell him that he'd said something he probably shouldn't repeat, but I'm pretty sure he used to get online later to look it up."

"His search history must be fascinating." Cade shook his head. "You know, if he googles spankings, he's going to get a lot more than he bargained for."

It was Anna's turn to nearly choke on her drink. "Oh, God, now there's a thought," she laughed. "He doesn't even understand kissing–there's a whole universe of  _over-his-head_  just lurking on the internet, waiting to strike."

Cade paused as a thought struck him. "You know, all of this makes me wonder about something," he mused, but Anna held up a hand to stop him.

"Don't ask me about Cybertronian sex. I don't know either," she said, and she sounded so much like Tessa that Cade couldn't help laughing.

"That's not what I was going to say, and also I'm very happy with my ignorance in that regard," Cade replied. "No, I was just thinking that you're lucky that you get to experience what it is to be a human and an Autobot. I wonder if that same tech could be used to link Optimus into a human. You know, give him a look at your world, like you're getting a look at his."

Anna smiled. "As much fun as that sounds, I don't think it's a possibility," she said, shaking her head. "It's a little bit harder to build a human for Optimus than it was to build an Autobot for me."

"What if you had a volunteer for a trade? Like me, for example," Cade suggested. Her eyes widened at the offer and he explained, "I'm not gonna lie, Anna, you look like you're having so much fun when you're Alias that I'm curious as hell. Spending an afternoon as an Autobot while Optimus gets to be human sounds like a pretty good deal to me, if you think he'd be interested."

She sat back, looking a little stunned. "Um… wow," she said after a moment. "I can honestly say that this is something I haven't considered." She gave it a little thought, then said, "He might be interested. I could ask him if you're really serious about this."

It had been a spur-of-the-moment offer, but Cade still nodded, then remembered that she couldn't see it and spoke instead. "Yeah, I am. You're familiar with all of this, though, so I guess the better question is, do you think it'll even work?"

Anna drummed her fingers on the table for a moment. "Well, not as the tech is now, but I don't see why we couldn't try to make it work," she finally said. "The main issue would be finding a way to make it so you're both able to move independently while in the link. My full  _vis vitae_  doesn't actually fully leave to enter Alias, you know. My consciousness, my thoughts, my memories… I suppose what you would call my mind… all that does transfer, yes, but I remain tied to my physical brain. Making the link two-way instead of one is probably not an insurmountable problem, but it will be difficult." She rubbed her temples. "Maybe I can come up with some work-arounds once this headache goes away. It's an interesting idea to play with, if nothing else."

Cade frowned at the mention of her headache–she was looking a bit pale again. Her personality was so big and she was so energetic when she was linked into Alias that he sometimes forgot that Anna's human body was still recovering from the wounds she'd sustained during that week in the Decepticons' less than gentle care. "I'm heading back to my room. It would make me very happy to escort a pretty lady on the way," he offered.

She nodded gratefully. "Thank you, Cade, that would be very helpful. I counted my steps on the way here, but I don't actually remember what I came up with anymore." She sighed and shook her head. "This is going to take a lot of getting used to."

He stood and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. "Give yourself time," he said gently as he led her out of the room. "No one expects you to be completely independent immediately. Besides, doesn't Ratchet think you might still get your vision back?"

Anna shrugged. "He might. I don't."

The flat surety in her voice gave him pause. "It hasn't been that long, Anna," he said, trying to keep his tone neutral.

She shook her head. "I did some searches on this kind of blindness when they unlocked my internet access–you wouldn't believe how fast I can assimilate information as Alias. Everything I read said that I should be noticing some improvement by now if I'm going to. I'm not. Don't," she said when he started to disagree with her. "Please don't tell me to keep a positive outlook or hope for the best. I know your intentions are good, but I'm a scientist. I believe in facts, and the fact is that I'm blind now. I just need to accept it."

Cade swallowed the comforting words he'd been about to speak. He could certainly understand that she didn't want any false hope–his wife had been the same way with her cancer. "At least you have Alias," he finally said.

"And that's exactly what keeps me going," she agreed. "Getting to be an Autobot is a dream come true, but coming back to this body… it's like waking up blind for the first time all over again. I wish I could wave a magic wand and have her repaired and ready to go."

"Well, it's not a magic wand, but you've got a lot of us working on her and we'll get her back to you as fast as we can," Cade promised. He stopped in front of Prime's door. "Okay, we're here. Are you okay until Optimus gets back?"

She released his arm as the door slid open. "Yes, thanks, I'll be fine," she said. "I know where everything is in there. Oh, incidentally, Optimus had some furniture of my own delivered today so you could have your bed back. Thank you for letting me use it. That was very generous of you."

"No problem. Have a good night, Anna." He waited until she was inside before going to his own room.


	19. Every Moment of Every Day

Anna was still awake when Optimus returned an hour later. She was sitting with her feet up on the couch he'd had brought in for her, rubbing her temples. He paused when he entered, a bit surprised that she wasn't sleeping–the kill-switch had wiped her out for most of the day last time. "Is your head still bothering you, Anna?" he asked as he crossed to stand beside her, concerned that perhaps the pain was keeping her from resting.

"Yes, but don't worry. I'm sure it's just because I've been thinking so much," she said. She put her hands down and turned toward his voice with a smile. "Cade had a very interesting suggestion at dinner that I wanted to discuss with you."

He knelt down beside her, bringing his face within the range he'd learned allowed her to see the glow of his eyes. "Oh? And what would that be?"

"He suggested that we repurpose the link while Alias is out of commission. He actually offered to do a kind of trade with you for a day, if you wanted to see how it feels to be human like I'm getting to experience how it feels to be an Autobot."

Optimus's eyebrows rose and he just stared for a moment, completely caught off-guard. "That's… unexpected. Would that even work?" he asked, not sure exactly how to respond yet. The idea felt too big to absorb all at once.

"That's what I've been thinking about," Anna replied. "And while it would be technically quite difficult, yes, I do think that it might be possible. But whether or not we even try to modify the tech depends on how you would feel about it. After all, trading bodies with someone is pretty intensely personal. It would take a lot of trust and I don't know Cade as well as you do."

"Like you, Cade Yeager has held my life in his hands. He is trustworthy," Optimus said immediately. "In fact, he is like you in many regards."

She raised an eyebrow in a playful expression. "Should I be jealous?"

He snorted at her teasing. "No one is like you in that regard, Anna." She laughed at that, but when she grimaced, his worry intensified. The first time they'd used the kill-switch, her headache had only lasted an hour or so. It had been much longer than that this time. He hated the reminder that he'd hurt her, even though the shut-down had been necessary. "We can talk about this more tomorrow, but for now, I think you should get some rest. I can tell that you're in pain. Do you need me to get you some medicine for your headache?"

"No, it's fine. I actually took some a little while ago and it's starting to kick in," Anna said, and Optimus made a sound of surprise. "I'm learning to do things by feel. The vitamins are huge and the iron's small and round, so that left the flat ovals, and that's Tylenol." Her smile returned, a little sad, a little proud. "I even cooked dinner–well, I should say that I found the kitchen and heated something up, but still. Impressed?"

"Very," Optimus replied, meaning it. "But not surprised."

She stood and he offered his hand, meaning to guide her toward the bed as he'd been doing for the last few days, but she didn't take hold of it this time. She just patted his fingers and gently pushed him away. "It's okay, Optimus. I can do it." Her chin lifted, determined, but he didn't miss the tightness that anxiety gave her face as she walked cautiously forward with her hands held out before her. "I need to get used to this at some point and you can't always be here to hold my hand."

He withdrew his hand a little, but not so far that he couldn't help her if she stumbled. "Yes, but it's also all right to accept my aid when I am here," he replied gently. "You don't have to make this adjustment alone, Anna."

She reached the bed and sat down with an audible sigh. "I know, and I do appreciate your help, really. I just… if I can't be Alias for a few days, I need to learn how to be this new version of me. I am grateful that you're here, but I need to not be helpless or dependant. Does that make sense?"

"It does," Optimus said, not telling her how much it hurt his heart to think of her trapped in darkness for the rest of her life and feeling more than a bit guilty for not realizing just how much Alias had become her lifeline in these last few days. "We'll get her fixed as soon as we can."

She snapped her fingers. "Oh, that reminds me. I almost forgot to tell you something else Cade suggested," she said as she pulled back the blankets and slipped beneath them. "He said they've got him cleaning contact points and that since most of them are in places it's not easy to see, he would be doing them by feel. He said he can't think of a reason why I can't do it instead."

Optimus thought for a moment, a little surprised that Ratchet or Wheeljack hadn't thought of that. Anna was putting on a brave face right now, but he could tell that she was already going a little stir-crazy with nothing to do–she'd never been able to handle boredom well. "What did you say to that?" he asked.

"I told him to make sure I wouldn't slow them down–I only want to help if I'll actually be  _helping._  Lord knows I'd rather spend a few days bored out of my mind than get in the way of getting Alias back." She paused, then added, "But you know I want to."

He nodded, watching her as she made herself comfortable. "Cade seems to have been full of interesting suggestions tonight," he commented, wishing he'd been there for it.

She actually laughed at that. "It was the most entertaining dinner I've had in quite a while, that's for sure," she agreed.

"Should  _I_  be jealous?" he asked, echoing her teasing.

Anna grinned. "Every moment of every day. Didn't you know?" she replied, and he shook his head, chuckling.

"Thank you, that makes me feel so much better."

"My pleasure, dearest."

Optimus reached out and gently touched her hand on the bed, then got up and went to his own recharging chair, dimming the lights along the way. He had just sat down when Anna spoke again. "Optimus, all joking aside… this thing with Cade isn't about that. I wasn't looking for someone new while I was away and I'm certainly not interested now that I'm back. You do know that, right?"

He went still. That was something he'd never allowed himself to wonder about. He'd told her to forget about him, find a human mate and move on with her life, even though it had felt like ripping his own spark out to say it. But even though he'd believed that giving her up was the right thing to do, he had never asked or checked if she'd done as he'd asked during their time apart. There was only so much he could take. "I only wanted you to be happy, Anna," he said at last.

She sighed. "I know you did. And what did I tell you?"

The memory brought a ghost of a smile. "You told me that you were going to find a way to hurt me for it," he replied, and looking over, he saw that she was smiling, too.

"Oh yes, I still owe you for that. Thank you for reminding me, especially now that you've given me a sword," she said, and he groaned. But then she went serious again. "I meant the other part."

He looked at her for a long moment, once more marveling that the center of his universe could be so small. "You said that I made you happy," he finally murmured. "You said that what we had was enough and that you didn't want anyone else."

"Take that out of past tense, big guy," Anna said, closing her eyes. "And remember it."


	20. Nothing's Ever Easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is cross-posted at fanfiction dot net, but I decided to catch it up here just in case anyone hasn't gone over there to find it.

The next morning, Optimus brought Anna to the lab–he’d been relieved that she hadn’t argued against riding on his shoulder this morning. Much as he was proud of her for starting to reclaim her independence, he couldn’t deny that he liked having her there again after so long. 

Wheeljack and Cade were already there, although it looked like neither had started working yet. “Good morning,” Cade greeted them when they entered. He was already on the table with Alias. “Anna, I have coffee.”

“Sweet nectar of the gods, gimme,” she said immediately. Optimus snorted but put her down on the table near Cade, who handed her a mug. “Thank you, you’re a lifesaver.”

Optimus glanced down at Cade. “Cade, if you’ve got a minute, I’d like to talk with you,” he said.

“Sure,” Cade replied easily, but Anna’s eyes widened and she went still with her coffee cup halfway to her lips.

Wheeljack spoke before she could ask Optimus any questions, and he wondered if the engineer already knew about Cade’s offer. “I can get you started on your project whenever you’re ready, Anna,” he offered. “We’ve already got the cleaning equipment set up. Finish your coffee and I’ll get you going, all right?”

Optimus nodded at him and offered Cade his hand. He climbed on, balancing his own coffee carefully as Optimus carried him out. 

Cade didn’t say anything until Optimus went into the smaller, unused lab next door and the door slid closed behind them. “Well, I guess this means Anna told you my idea,” he said, breaking the silence. “Want to talk about it?”

Optimus nodded. “I would be lying if I said I’m not interested by the possibility, but I’d like to discuss your reasons for offering to do this before I say yes,” he said. “There’s no small amount of risk involved, as you well know, and not a lot of benefit for you.”

“It’s partially selfish, partially not,” Cade replied honestly. “Anna looks like she has a blast as Alias. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious what it’s like to be an Autobot–that’s the selfish part.”

“I can understand that,” Optimus said–after all, curiosity was a big part of his own interest in making this switch. He loved a human. Of course about the chance to be like her was compelling. “What’s the other part?”

Cade paused for a moment before answering. “You’ve done a lot for me, Optimus–you’ve given me a home and a purpose, and most of all, you’ve ensured that Tessa is safe and protected. Saying thank you isn’t enough for that. Maybe I see this as my chance to give something to you for a change.”

“You owe me nothing, Cade,” Optimus replied quietly. “You saved my life. If there is any debt between us, it is mine.”

“It’s more than that,” Cade said. He looked down at his wedding ring and ran his thumb over it. “My wife is dead, Optimus. I can never touch her again. But I can give you what I can’t have.” He finally met Prime’s gaze again. “I would give anything to have that chance. This is yours. Take it.”

Optimus was quiet for a long moment. Finally, he said, “If you are truly sure that you want to do this, Cade, then I will accept your offer. And I thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Cade smiled as if shaking off the darker mood. “This will be fun for both of us, I think.”

Optimus shook his head, a little overwhelmed by the possibilities, but then he remembered that Anna hadn’t even been sure it could be done and forced his eagerness back down. “If they can make it work, that is.”

Cade suddenly grinned. “You know, I’m not sure I’d bet against your girl doing anything she sets her mind to. You mentioned the risk, but she’s already blazed the trail and she just went for it like it was nothing. She’s something else, Optimus.” 

“She has always been brave,” Optimus agreed as he carried Cade out of the room and back toward Wheeljack’s lab. “Stubborn, too. You know that when I sent her away, I told her that she should be with someone of her own kind? And instead of doing so, she found a way to become my kind.” 

Cade laughed. “You’ve met your match, my friend. I don’t think you’re ever going to get around her.”

“I’m afraid you might be right,” Optimus admitted. The lab door slid open and Wheeljack and Anna looked up. “We’ve reached an agreement,” he told her. 

To his surprise, she didn’t smile at the news. “Well, I’m sorry to tell you both this, but we’re not doing it,” she said flatly.

“Wait, what?” Cade said, clearly taken aback as Optimus put him down on the table. “What do you mean?”

“Did I stutter? We are not doing it,” she repeated. “Optimus, remember how you said you wouldn’t approve the link with Alias if it posed too much of a risk to me? I’m pulling the same thing on you right now.” She crossed her arms. “This time, I’m telling you no.”

Wheeljack glanced at Optimus. “I can’t give you orders, Prime, but she’s right. The link was never intended to work the way you’re thinking about.”

“But yesterday you said you thought you could come up with a work-around, Anna,” Cade protested. 

He sounded as disappointed as Optimus felt–yes, he had only thought of it as a real option for a few minutes, but he was surprised at how much he had already been looking forward to it. “What changed in the last ten minutes?” Prime asked, more than a little surprised at the abrupt turnaround from their conversation only a few hours ago.

“What changed was that I got some more specifics about the link process–what it can do and what it can’t,” Anna told him, and Optimus saw that she was actually shaking. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your offer, Cade, but it’s much too risky.”

“What sort of risk are we talking about here?” Optimus said, genuinely concerned now. If this woman who had confidently risked the erasure of her entire mind and had argued so passionately against shutting down the link project even after nearly self-destructing was now convinced that this idea was too dangerous–was so shaken by it that she was trembling–it had to be something serious.

“Scrambling your minds together, just for starters,” Wheeljack said. “Or overloading one or both of your brains and causing permanent damage.”

“And those are just two of the possibilities,” Anna broke in, and rubbed her forehead.

Optimus frowned at that, his disappointment about the missed opportunity to be human for a day now overshadowed by concern for her. “Is your head–”

“Let me worry about my head, Optimus,” she interrupted, dropping her hand. “Right now we’re talking about yours.” 

“Wait a second. I don’t understand the distinction here,” Cade said. “How is this so radically different from you linking with Alias?”

She paused for a second, gathering her thoughts, before trying to explain. “Okay, I’ll try to simplify it. Remember what I told you yesterday? When I’m linked with Alias, it’s not a full transfer, it’s more like… you saw the movie Avatar, right? My brain, my physical brain, is still active even while my higher brain functions are fully immersed in Alias. I’m not entirely Alias-independent-of-Anna but I’m also not just Anna-driving-Alias–it’s something in-between. And Optimus couldn’t drive your body like that while you’re driving his, because you would get in the way.”

Cade glanced up at Prime, who was listening to this explanation as closely as he was. “And there’s no way to work around this?” the human asked.

“No,” Wheeljack answered without hesitation. “The link just doesn’t work that way. We didn’t design it for a full personality transfer. We couldn’t.” He looked back at Optimus. “We know how to transfer an Autobot personality out of one body and into another, or store it in memory banks–we’ve done it before. But what we don’t know how to do is remove a personality from an organic life form and store it, or move it somewhere else. Human brains don’t work like ours, Optimus. There is no way to fully remove Cade’s mind from his body, and the part that remained would get entangled with your mind when you linked in. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to separate you again.”

“And even if we could somehow move Cade entirely out of his physical body, that would create another problem,” Anna took over. “A vast amount of the human brain’s processes are used merely for the body’s autonomic functions–cardiac, endocrine, respiratory, all of that. You don’t know how to control any of them, Optimus, and if Cade’s full vis vitae was really, completely removed…”

“His body would likely die,” Wheeljack finished when her voice trailed off. “And if you were in it, you’d die with it, Prime.”

Anna turned toward Optimus–he automatically shifted a little to get in line with her gaze. “This is night-and-day different from me linking into Alias. We thought there was a chance of my mind getting damaged or lost due to the energy of the link, but that was a very, very small chance that we fully understood and had planned for. Optimus, we aren’t talking about small chances here. This is likely.” She reached out and he automatically put his hand down beside her so she could lean against it. “I’m not risking you like that. Either one of you.”

“We will not make the attempt,” Optimus told her softly. He looked over at Cade. “I’m sorry, my friend, and I thank you for your generosity.”

“I don’t want to die either, you know,” Cade replied. “I’m in full agreement with you.”

Wheeljack sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Contemplating the death of my Prime is not how I planned to spend my morning,” he said, sounding as shaken as the rest of them “Anna, you know we’re all glad to have you back, but damn, you make things terrifyingly interesting around here sometimes.”

She laughed. “There’s a human curse that goes may you live in interesting times,” she replied, grinning. “Obviously I’m your curse.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d say that,” Wheeljack disagreed. Then he shot Optimus an amused look. “I mean, at least not until Prime leaves the room.”


	21. A Friendly Chat

Optimus left the lab once Ratchet and Perceptor arrived. Anna had been eager to get to work and once Wheeljack and Cade gotten her started, she’d thrown herself into the task–she had always been at her happiest when immersed in work. It had been a good idea to get her involved. Optimus had been relieved to see her acting almost like the Anna he’d known before this ordeal. But thinking of that only reminded him that Starscream still hadn’t been dealt with, and Optimus had finally left Anna in their hands. 

He walked slowly to the secure bay, thinking over his options. Undeniably tempting as it was to kill Starscream for what he’d done to Anna, her capture had not been his idea. While it would be undoubtedly satisfying, killing him would not make her any safer. Starscream had merely been the tool used to hurt her.

Megatron’s was the hand which had wielded it. Optimus needed to neutralize that hand or it would only grasp other tools.

In part, that was why Optimus had kept the Decepticon here this long, as well as why he’d allowed Thundercracker to escape their battle with only a little damage–he wanted the other Seeker to report that Starscream had been captured. While Megatron and his second-in-command certainly did not have a charmed relationship, Optimus had been certain that the Decepticon leader wouldn’t leave Starscream in Autobot custody any longer than necessary. Regardless of Megatron’s well-known dislike for him, Starscream was privy to too much knowledge to write off. Optimus had been banking on Megatron to come for him.

But there hadn’t been any Decepticon activity in response to Starscream’s capture at all. As far as the Autobots could discern, the Decepticons were behaving like nothing had happened. Megatron wasn’t taking the bait. It was out-of-character, and that was worrisome.

Ironhide was just coming out of the secure bay when Optimus turned the final corner, still deep in thought. The warrior greeted him with a respectful nod. “Prime.”

“Ironhide,” Optimus returned, pulling his thoughts back to the present. “How is our guest today?”

“Still bitching and moaning, of course,” Ironhide replied, rubbing the back of his neck wearily. “It’s the highlight of my day when Crosshairs comes in to relieve me, I don’t mind telling you.”

“Has he said anything worthy of note?”

Ironhide rolled his eyes. “Lord Megatron will make us all pay for our treatment of him, Lord Megatron will come to rescue him, Lord Megatron will punish us for not repairing him, Lord Megatron will beat up our daddies on the playground, Lord Megatron blah blah blah. You know, the usual blather.” Then he grinned. “Crosshairs has taken to threatening to bring Alias back in when he gets too annoying.”

Prime frowned. That was the last thing he’d expected to hear. “Alias is not a topic I wanted any of you to discuss with him. I would have thought that was clear.”

Ironhide held up his hands. “Oh, there’s been no discussion, Optimus. He doesn’t even know her name. Trust me, no one needed to be told that,” he reassured him. “No, it usually goes down like this–Starscream starts demanding that we bring in Ratchet to weld his limbs back on, and Crosshairs offers to bring Prime’s new enforcer back in to remove a few more for him instead. Shuts him up every time.”

Optimus stared at him for a moment, completely derailed. He replayed Ironhide’s words in his mind and they made no more sense the second time around. “My what?”

Ironhide laughed. “You heard me. Starscream thinks she’s your resident muscle. He’s the one who called her your enforcer, not us. I think he’s more afraid of her than he’s ever been of me,” he said, looking absolutely delighted about it. “You should see his face when Crosshairs offers to go get her. He looks like he’s going to start leaking engine fluid all over himself–thinks she’s this insane, bot-eating psychopath. It. Is. Priceless.”

Optimus blinked, momentarily lost for words. Imagining Alias as his enforcer had been bizarre enough, but… “Bot-eating psychopath?” he echoed weakly.

Ironhide was grinning even wider now. “Yeah, the biting really made an impression. Wish I’d thought of it. Please, please let me be the one to tell her about her new job title, Prime.”

Optimus shook his head again, trying to get back on track. “Have you had any success in getting the location of the Decepticon base out of him?”

“Nothing, unfortunately,” Ironhide replied, going serious again. “He’s proving remarkably stubborn about that. But Crosshairs is very good at getting under his skin, and he rags on him nonstop while we question him. We’re hoping he’ll get angry enough to slip up soon.”

He’d been afraid of that answer. “Well, perhaps it’s time that I take another crack at him,” Optimus said, shaking out his shoulders in an attempt to loosen up. It didn’t do much for his tension. “I’ve tried to avoid it, but I will admit that there are a few things I’m eager to discuss with him.”

Ironhide nodded approvingly. “You look like you’re in a scary mood, Prime. Too bad we can’t bring Alias in to back you up again. You two made a helluva team and I’m sure he’d tell you anything you wanted to know just to keep her away from him.”

Optimus remembered how she’d collapsed in the corridor after confronting Starscream and started to say that even if Alias was functional, he wouldn’t ask Anna to go through that again–her nightmares that night had been almost nonstop. But then he paused. There was more than one way for Alias to help. “You know, Ironhide, you and I know that Alias is down right now,” he mused, smiling a little viciously. “But Starscream doesn’t.”

Ironhide grinned and cracked his knuckles. “Oh, I do like the way your mind works.”

.

Starscream looked up when the door opened. He raised an eyebrow when Ironhide came back in. “Back so soon?” he asked in as acidic a tone as he could summon. “I was looking forward to a few hours away from your hideous face.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t stay away. I missed your charming disposition too much,” Ironhide said, voice dripping with sarcasm. Optimus entered behind him and Starscream’s spark sank. “Plus I ran into Prime on his way in and thought, hey, why would I miss a chance to watch you get roughed up again?”

“I know I wouldn’t,” Crosshairs said, moving forward to greet Prime with a nod. 

“Me neither. I hope you scream for mercy again. It’s rapidly becoming one of my favorite things,” Sideswipe agreed.

“Now, now, Autobots,” Optimus said, stopping in front of Starscream and crossing his arms. “Starscream doesn’t have to get any new injuries as long as he cooperates. His fate is in his own hands now.”

“You mean his hand,” Ironhide corrected.

“What’s left of it,” Crosshairs added, grinning and flicking Starscream’s finger across the table so that it bounced back and forth between his arm and leg like a pinball.

“Very funny,” Starscream said sourly. Their continued refusal to reattach his limbs, leaving him crippled and in pain, infuriated him. “Where’s your bitch, Prime?”

“Oh, name-calling, that isn’t very nice,” Sideswipe murmured to Crosshairs, who shook his head as though disappointed by Starscream’s rudeness.

But Prime didn’t rise to the bait and merely smiled. “She’s up to her elbows in another bot’s chest cavity right now,” he replied calmly. “She’s very good at tearing them apart, but I don’t have to tell you that. Why, do you miss her?” 

Crosshairs positively cackled at that and Starscream clenched his fist despite the pain it caused–he hated to be laughed at. “One day I will meet her on a battlefield,” he promised, seething in impotent frustration. “And then we will see who tears whom apart.”

Optimus only shrugged, completely dismissing the threat. “If you wish to have a chance of meeting anyone on any battlefield in the future, tell me the location of the Decepticon base.”

Starscream scoffed. The Autobots had been asking him that question almost constantly for the last two days and he hadn’t told them anything. Why would he answer now just because Optimus Prime was the one asking? “I will not betray Lord Megatron that easily.”

“Your loyalty does you credit. Or rather, it would if you hadn’t already betrayed him by telling us about your human spy on the Energon project team.” Prime crossed his arms over his chest and gave him a knowing smile. “I hope for your sake that Megatron has become more forgiving in his time on Earth.” 

Starscream had to suppress a shudder. No, if anything, Megatron had become even more ruthless and less tolerant of failure since they’d been stuck on this disgusting rock of a planet, and Prime well knew it. If Megatron ever found out that Starscream had compromised his human contact and jeopardized the Decepticons’ chances of getting that Energon formula for themselves…

Optimus didn’t give him time to respond. “But perhaps I skipped ahead to the end. Let’s go back to the beginning. You said that Thompson and Soundwave planned to take over the Energon research. How much information did your spy give you on the project?”

“We have everything,” Starscream lied, trying to make it as convincing as he could, but it was getting harder. He’d been kept awake since his capture and the lack of charge time was starting to wear on him. His thoughts were slowing, his fear growing, and he was starting to lose track of what lies he’d told and to whom. “Every scrap and byte of data they ever produced is in our possession. Soundwave is already making Energon with their formula. You should release me now because when Lord Megatron comes to rescue me, he and all the Decepticons will be fully charged. Your half-powered Autobots won’t stand a chance!”

“You’d be surprised how much damage an Autobot can do at half-power,” Optimus said with a strange little smile. “Also, you’re lying. You have no information at all. How did you make contact with Thompson?”

Starscream bit back a snarl. Why did Prime keep asking him questions that he already knew the answers to? “Shove it up your tailpipe, Prime!”

“Oh, he’s just trying to die now,” Crosshairs murmured an instant before Optimus’s fist slammed into the table an inch from Starscream’s head.

“You don’t seem to realize,” Optimus murmured, his face very close to Starscream’s, “that the reason I haven’t been personally overseeing your questioning is because I want to hurt you.” He cracked his knuckles right beside Starscream’s head. “And right now, Starscream, you are tempting me almost beyond what I can bear.”

Starscream saw it in his eyes and knew he wasn’t exaggerating. He’d been held by the Autobots before but never had it been like this. He was truly beginning to wish that he’d never found that damn scientist! Who would ever have thought that killing one human would provoke Optimus Prime, the epitome of restraint, to such lasting rage? He forced himself to hold that furious gaze and finally said, “I can’t tell you what you’re asking, Prime. Don’t you understand that I can’t? If I answer your questions, I sign my own death warrant!”

“Oh, boo hoo hoo,” Crosshairs said mockingly.

Optimus didn’t back off. “If you are hoping for sympathy from me, you’re a bigger fool than I ever realized,” he growled. “And if death is what you fear, consider this, Starscream. There is a much faster way of getting the information I want from you.” He dug a finger into the crack he’d made in the armor over Starscream’s spark. “Everything I want to know is right here. It’s just a matter of…” He pulled, tearing the crack ever so slightly wider and making Starscream whimper in pain, “… taking it.”

“You wouldn’t,” Starscream whispered, appalled at the implication that Prime would pull his spark and strip his dying consciousness of all its secrets. That was an act beyond torture, beyond murder–it was the ultimate desecration, very nearly cannibalism. Even the Decepticons didn’t do that. The thought alone was almost too repellant to consider. “You wouldn’t. You’re a Prime!”

Optimus held his gaze for a long, long moment. “Well, perhaps you’re right,” he said at last, withdrawing his hand. “Perhaps I wouldn’t. But then again, my patience is waning, and perhaps you’re wrong. Maybe when it comes to scum like you, I don’t find the practice as abhorrent as you hope I do.” He smiled coldly. “And maybe someone else on this base would love to help me do it. Are you sure you want to take that chance?”

Starscream stared at Prime in absolute horror. “You… you wouldn’t,” he repeated, praying it was true. But then again, he’d been wrong about what Optimus Prime would do or allow more often than he cared to remember over these last two days. After all, that female Autobot was fragging crazy, and she was clearly in Prime’s inner circle now. “You’re bluffing–you wouldn’t allow a bot like that on your base!”

Optimus shrugged, stepping back. “I suppose you’ll find out soon enough, then.” He glanced at Ironhide. “Go get her.”

“You got it, Prime,” Ironhide replied, turning immediately for the door.

Crosshairs gave a hoot of delight and jumped up to sit on the table that held Starscream’s arm and leg, shoving them roughly out of the way. “Oh, if I was a human, I’d want popcorn for this,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Start the show!”

Terror surged through him. “No, wait!” Starscream yelped.

Prime held up a hand and Ironhide stopped. “Have you reconsidered your refusal to answer my questions voluntarily?”

Starscream looked around desperately, praying with every bit of his spark that Megatron would choose that moment to attack and save him from this impossible situation. But it didn’t happen. He shifted nervously in his bonds and finally said, “We didn’t contact Thompson. He contacted us.”

Crosshairs groaned and threw his hands in the air. “No, come on, don’t tell him now!” he cried. “Grow a spine, you coward! Dammit, this was about to get good.”

Optimus and Ironhide exchanged a glance before focusing on Starscream again, completely ignoring Crosshairs just like the rest of them did. “Why?” Prime asked.

“Why? For the same reason those human maggots always offer us information–money,” Starscream said derisively. How naive were these Autobots? “They’ll do anything for a few pounds of gold. Humans have no loyalty to anything but their precious money.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. That must be why that human you kidnapped told you so much,” Crosshairs said, and Starscream shot him a glare. Did the bastard never shut up?

“I’m sure she told us nothing because she knew nothing,” he snarled back. “Unlike you, I know how to make a captive talk!”

He immediately regretted bringing up the human’s torture when Optimus spun and backhanded him across the face with all his considerable strength, striking Starscream hard enough to nearly dislocate his skull from his spine. He cried out in pain, sparks crackling over his optics, but any hope that he could escape Prime’s questioning through unconsciousness was short-lived. Although every line of his tense body screamed the desire to punch and keep punching, that single blow was all Prime delivered. “You are unwise to remind me of your crimes,” Prime growled through clenched teeth. “Guard your words, Decepticon, or pay for them.”

Starscream nodded, not quite daring to speak–he wasn’t even sure he could. His jaw didn’t feel like it was hanging right. Prime clenched his fists as though holding onto his temper. Even Crosshairs was silent while Optimus reined in his anger. When he finally spoke again, it was in a deliberately cool tone. “What exactly did Thompson offer you?”

Despite the agony pounding through his head and jaw, Starscream didn’t dare refuse to answer. “The key to unlimited Energon,” Starscream replied, choosing his words far more carefully now. At least they knew this part anyway from last time, so it cost him nothing to repeat it. He spun out the story, hoping that talking more would distract Prime from asking questions he was less eager to answer, even though every word made his jaw throb. “He told us that Elias knew how it was done and that he could deliver her to us. We could not pass up the opportunity. The humans are using oil at an alarming rate. We might be here for centuries. Once they use it all, we need some other way to make Energon, or we will perish.”

“Blah blah blah, we’ve heard all that before. Why don’t you just perish now and save us from your babbling?” Crosshairs suggested.

Starscream shot a hateful look at the sniper. His taunting had been nearly nonstop and it grated on him like sand in a joint. “Why don’t you just–”

Ironhide kicked the table, shaking Starscream against his chains. “Focus, Decepticon!” he snapped.

“Or what?” Starscream yelled, fear and fatigue and pain making him forget caution. “You’ll cut me up? Rip out my eyes? Feed me to a maniac? Strip my spark? What new threat do you have for me?”

Optimus crossed his arms and stared him down. “Don’t think I’ve exhausted the limits of what I can do to you, Starscream,” he growled. “I am more than happy to show you just how creative we can be. I have not even scratched the surface.”

Starscream swallowed the rest of his tirade. He held Prime’s steady glare for as long as he could, but finally, he looked away, hating himself for doing so. 

Only then did Optimus speak again. “I admit that I am most interested in why Megatron hasn’t shown any interest in reclaiming you,” he said quietly. “It certainly appears that your beloved leader does not want you back.”

“Lover’s spat?” Crosshairs asked with mock-sympathy.

“He will come for me,” Starscream muttered, trying to convince himself that he believed it. He and Megatron had never shared any real trust, but he had to believe that his leader at least valued the amount of sensitive knowledge he held enough to make an effort to rescue him. “I have faith in Lord Megatron.”

“Well, I’m sure your faith warms his cold black spark,” Crosshairs said, sugary-sweet.

“Tell me where your base is,” Optimus said before Starscream could respond to the taunting again. “If you do so, I will deliver you back into your precious Megatron’s waiting arms.”

Starscream hated himself even more for the brief surge of hope he felt at that. They weren’t going to let him go, not that easily. “Forgive me for not jumping right on that offer, Optimus Prime,” he replied sarcastically. “I am not eager to get dumped on Lord Megatron in pieces.”

“There is no need to dismember you any further,” Optimus said, still so infuriatingly calm. “I make this offer in good faith, upon my honor as Prime. Tell me the location of the Decepticon base and you will be released without further harm.”

Starscream hesitated, torn. He wanted to believe, he really did, but it was just too good to be true, especially after Optimus had made such a point of telling him how badly he wanted to hurt him. That hadn’t been fake–his entire face throbbed from that backhand and he was pretty sure that his jaw was cracked in at least one place. Still, it was clear that Optimus wanted this information even more than he wanted to hurt Starscream. 

Perhaps he could be manipulated–carefully, carefully–into giving Starscream something for it. “If I answer this question of yours,” Starscream said slowly, watching Prime’s face cautiously to gauge his reaction, “will you answer one of mine?”

“The hell do you think this is, some kind of game? You don’t get a turn!” Ironhide burst out angrily, but Optimus held up his hand again and the warrior went quiet.

“You are either very brave or very stupid to attempt to negotiate with me in your current position,” Prime replied, narrowing his eyes. “It makes me truly curious just what you would risk so much to know.”

Well, that was the best reaction possible–not an outright no, and not another punch to the head for his audacity. He pressed on with a bit more confidence now. “Something of equal value, of course,” he said. “You want to know the location of our base very badly, after all. And I…” He paused, steeling himself, and finished in a rush, “I want to know where you found that female Cybertronian.”

“Oh, he’s even more stupid than I thought,” Sideswipe whispered. Crosshairs raised his eyebrows and even Ironhide, usually so poker-faced, whistled low, but Prime’s facial expression didn’t change at all.

“I am certain that you do,” was all he said, his tone very calm. 

Starscream waited, hoping for more, but nothing else was forthcoming. Damn, but they protected that female. He’d been here two days and hadn’t so much as learned her name! Megatron would be very interested in knowing that the Autobots had such a powerful new ally, but if Starscream couldn’t provide any more information than the mere fact of her existence, it would not go well for him. When the silence had stretched out long enough that he was certain that Prime intended to say nothing more, Starscream shrugged as best he could in his chains. “Then I’m afraid we have no deal.”

“Hit him again, Prime,” Crosshairs urged, leaning forward eagerly. “Come on, we won’t tell.”

Optimus shook his head with a little smile. “It’s amusing that you think there was ever a chance that I would deal with a piece of scrap like you,” he said. 

“Don’t act so high and mighty, Optimus Prime!” Starscream cried. “All your talk of peace and justice and mercy, and look what you have done to me! You offer me a promise on your honor as Prime, but you threaten to strip my spark! You have no honor!”

Prime’s smile died. He walked forward very slowly, stopping only when he was toe-to-toe with Starscream again. “You had better thank Primus that I do have honor,” he whispered, eyes narrowed dangerously. “Because I know what you have done, Decepticon. I know exactly how much our human ally suffered at your hands and I know that you are the one who killed her. And the only thing that keeps me from visiting the same treatment upon you is my honor as Prime. Were I anything else, I would delight in tearing you apart with my bare hands and nothing about your death would be quick.”

Starscream’s spark trembled in his chest at the thinly veiled rage in Prime’s voice. “I was only following Lord Megatron’s orders,” he whined, hoping to deflect that powerful fury anywhere but at himself. “Just as your Autobots obey yours. You cannot judge me for that.”

Optimus clenched his fists, making Starscream’s entire body tense in anticipation of another beating, but Prime’s control held. “I do judge you for that, Starscream. Only a coward would torture and murder a being so much weaker than yourself, and only a coward would attempt to justify his sadism and brutality as only following orders,” he said tightly. “You owe me a life for the one you took, and I promise you, the instant your usefulness to me is done, I will claim it. Keep that in mind as you consider whether or not to answer my questions.”

Starscream trembled with fear no matter how hard he tried to control it. He had suspected that Prime had no intention of letting him leave here alive, but getting such a bald confirmation still shook him badly. 

Optimus dug his fingers painfully into the crack in his chest armor again–all his fingers this time, not just one–and said, “This is the last time that I will ask you this, Decepticon. Where. Is. Your. Base?” 

It was clear that he would not accept any more obstruction or excuses. Even Crosshairs was silenced by the menace in the air. Starscream closed his eyes, well and truly trapped, and whispered, “I can’t answer that, Optimus Prime, even if I wanted to. And stripping my spark will not help you. I don’t know where it is.”

He cried out when Optimus pressed harder into the wound. “Explain,” Prime snapped.

It took all of Starscream’s willpower not to try to shift away from Prime’s hand, but he hadn’t served Megatron for all these years without learning how to tell when the slightest move would provoke violence. Prime’s patience was clearly exhausted and now he was just looking for a reason. Starscream was determined not to give him one, and if it meant he had to face Lord Megatron’s wrath later, well, Megatron was far away. 

Optimus Prime was right here. 

“Soundwave and Knockout have repaired the Nemesis,” Starscream said, praying that Megatron would never find out that he’d told the Autobots this. “Our base could be anywhere in the world right now, or not on this world at all.”

“Oh, now that’s very interesting, very interesting indeed,” Crosshairs said. He tilted his head and scrutinized Starscream. “And how do you find your way home, hmm?”

The truth was that he found the Nemesis via a homing beacon in his chest, and there was absolutely no way Starscream would admit to that while Optimus still had his fingers jammed in his cracked breastplate. “We radio for the location,” he said, letting his nervousness show in hopes that Prime would think it was because of the betrayal, not because of a lie. “Or they bridge us in.”

“What is the radio frequency?” Optimus demanded.

Starscream hesitated and Prime growled and pulled at his wound again. He yelped with pain and terror. “Stop! I’ll tell you!” he cried, but his strong sense of self-preservation made him add, “And you told me that if I gave you the location of our base, you’d release me. If I give you the frequency, will you keep your bargain?”

Ironhide stalked forward, stopping just behind Prime’s shoulder. “You haven’t given us anything, Decepticon punk!” he snapped. “The deal was that you give us the location of your base and we let you go–telling us that the Nemesis flies around doesn’t even begin to meet your side of the bargain!”

“But information that leads us to it might,” Optimus said over his shoulder, but he never once broke eye contact. “Last chance, Starscream. Life or death. Your choice.” 

And given that choice, Starscream would always choose life. Shame and cowardice washed off but death was forever. He whispered the frequency, already anticipating his release.

Optimus repeated it to Sideswipe and Starscream heard the Autobot radio the information to someone else, but all he could see was Prime’s hard glare. In those cold blue eyes was no hint of mercy and he didn’t remove his hand. Starscream’s certainty started to fade a little. “I gave you what you asked for,” he said, looking nervously from Prime to Crosshairs and Ironhide. “You said you’d release me!”

“We didn’t say when,” Ironhide said, and Starscream’s jaw dropped, making him yelp with pain as the movement aggravated his cracked jaw.

“Besides, did you really expect us to take your word for it and just let you go right this second?” Crosshairs asked. He caught the look on Starscream’s face and laughed. “Oh, you really are impressively stupid. You’re going nowhere until we’ve got a lock on the Nemesis, you idiot.”

“And we’d best get that lock quickly,” Optimus said, clenching his free hand into a fist. “Or I may just decide that you haven’t held up your end of the bargain after all.”

He gaped at Prime. “But you promised to release me without further harm, Prime,” Starscream protested. “I’ve given you what you wanted to know!” 

“No, what you’ve given me is a doubtful statement that you don’t know the location of your own base and a clue on a scavenger hunt,” Optimus replied. “And I have no patience right now for a wild goose chase, especially when a way to verify your assertions is available to me.”

The fear that had started to subside returned with a vengeance. “No, don’t!” Starscream cried, trying unsuccessfully to pull away from Prime’s hand. The silence stretched out far past the point of agony and Prime still didn’t release him. Starscream saw his death in those eyes. “Ask me something else!” he burst out, openly begging now. “Anything! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!”

Ironhide stepped forward. “I’m sure he does know more than what little he’s told us so far, Prime,” he said, sending an assessing look Starscream’s way. “Maybe we should keep him around a little longer. It would be prudent to find out more about the Nemesis before we take any action against it, after all, and I’m sure he knows all about the defenses.”

Optimus only response was a growl. His fingers twitched, sending another shudder of pain through Starscream’s wound.

“No, no, I want to see him rip the little shit’s spark out,” Crosshairs said, but when Ironhide sharply hushed him, Starscream’s terror grew. No one ever told Crosshairs to stop his taunting. If Ironhide was doing so now, it could only be because the warrior was afraid Prime wasn’t doing this for show. 

“Look, give us a little more time with him. Don’t kill him yet. Let me have one more chance to pick his brain,” Ironhide suggested soothingly. “If he doesn’t answer our questions, he’s all yours and you can do whatever you want to him. Deal?”

Starscream stared hopefully up at the Autobot leader, praying harder than he ever had before. Finally, finally, Optimus dropped his hand and stepped back. “Fine. He is in your charge, Ironhide,” he said at last. He pointed a threatening finger at Starscream. “You don’t want me to hear that you’re giving them any problems, Decepticon. Because if I have to come back and have this discussion with you again, you won’t like the outcome.”

“You won’t, I swear!” Starscream promised, actually meaning it for once. He’d been close to death enough times to tell a bluff from the real thing, and Prime had not been bluffing. He would make sure that Prime didn’t have any reason whatsoever to come back. “I’ll cooperate!”

Optimus gave him a hard smile. “I rather hope you don’t, actually,” he said, and with that, he and Ironhide left again.


	22. Ironhide Has a Way With Words

Ironhide waited until the door closed behind them before he whistled low and looked up at his leader and oldest friend with a touch of concern. "That was a bit more intense than I was expecting," he commented as they walked down the corridor. "I mean, at the end there you sure had him convinced that you were about to rip his spark out."

Optimus didn't look at him. "That's because I was."

That was what Ironhide had been afraid of and his concern grew. "Are you all right, Optimus?" he asked a bit hesitantly. "You're… not yourself."

Prime's footsteps slowed to a stop. "You're right," he replied, his voice very soft. "I didn't lie to him in there, not once. I haven't been in because I  _do_  want to hurt him. When I said that I would strip his spark to find out what I need to know, I meant it."

Ironhide stared at him. "No, I don't believe that. That's not you."

Prime abruptly slammed his fist into the wall, his voice rising. "That bastard  _tortured_  Anna! He tied her up and beat her and electrocuted her and blinded her, and it's only through the barest chance that he didn't murder her! She wakes up screaming every single night from the memories of what he did to her and I want to kill him for it!"

"Optimus," Ironhide murmured, shocked, and he couldn't think of anything to say after that.

But he didn't seem to need to say anything else because Optimus wasn't done yet. "This is exactly why Primes are not supposed to have relationships like this," he said harshly, still not meeting Ironhide's eyes. "You're right, Ironhide. I am not myself. No fit Prime would compromise his judgment this way."

"Hey, hey, whoa," Ironhide interrupted, his worry blooming into full-blown alarm. "Stop that right there. That's not what I meant, not even close. No one's judging you for being angry over what happened to Anna–hell, we're  _all_  angry. In fact, I'd say your restraint has been more than admirable given the circumstances." He reached out and grasped Prime's arm, pulling him around until he finally looked at him. "Optimus, no one here has any problem with your relationship with Anna. Are you listening to me?  _No one._ "

Optimus hesitated. "And if they did–if  _you_ did–would you tell me?"

Ironhide frowned at him. "I'm offended that you would even ask me that. When have I ever been known to sugar-coat anything?" he asked, and when Optimus snorted, acknowledging the truth of that, he added, "Besides, you already did that 'perfect Prime' thing and sent her away once, and don't think that the rest of us didn't notice how much it sucked. Do you honestly think you were a better leader while she was gone, or were you distracted because you were worrying about her nonstop? Come on, Optimus."

Optimus shook his head. "I have searched our history, Ironhide. I've learned everything there is to know about the Primes who came before me. None of them ever–"

"Well, so what?" Ironhide interrupted stubbornly. "Look, I'm no Prime, but I've been around for just as long as you have and I never heard that it's a law that Primes aren't allowed a sparkmate. Just because none of the other Primes were lucky enough to find theirs doesn't mean that you have to give yours up. Besides, who would've had Zeta or Sentinel anyway? And you still haven't answered my question–how is making yourself miserable of any possible benefit the Autobots? Don't you think it's better to have a Prime who's happy rather than one who's chronically pissed off because he sent his sparkmate away for no damn good reason? Don't be stupid!"

"You've got quite a way with words, my friend," Optimus said, but he looked a little less agonized.

"Yeah, and I'm right, too," Ironhide said firmly. "If some obscure rule says that falling in love makes you an unfit Prime, then that's a rule that needs to be scrapped. Stop beating yourself up, Optimus, and that's an order. No more of this nonsense about being unfit to lead, all right?"

Optimus finally smiled. "You can't actually give me orders, you know."

Ironhide grinned. "No, but I know someone who can, and I'm fully prepared to rat you out to her." Optimus snorted again and Ironhide relaxed a little at last, but his smile faded when he remembered what Optimus had said about Anna. He shook his head. "Starscream did all that and you only hit him once? Vector Sigma, you're a fragging paragon of virtue. If I was in your place, I don't know if I could have that kind of restraint."

Optimus straightened and squared his shoulders. "Truthfully, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to. We need to get Starscream out of here soon," he said at last. "The longer he is within my reach, the more likely it becomes that I will give in to the urge to punish him for what he's done. And if I kill a bound and helpless prisoner, I truly will be unfit to lead you."

Ironhide nodded. As understandable as it was, he knew Optimus had never agreed with executions. That just wasn't the kind of Prime he was. "Leave him to me. There's no reason for you to go back in there. I'll take care of everything."

"Thank you, Ironhide," Optimus said quietly.

"It's my genuine pleasure," he replied. Then he smiled, hoping to lighten the mood. "Now let's go find Anna and tell her that she's taken my job as your enforcer. I really, truly can't wait to see her reaction." Optimus laughed and seemed surprised to do so, but Ironhide was glad to hear it. "I mean, damn, I thought Starscream was going to pass out when you told me to go get her.  _Up to her elbows in another bot's chest_ , Prime, seriously?"

Optimus grinned as he started walking again. "Like I said, I didn't lie to him once. They found a way to let Anna help with the repairs," he explained. "When I left, she was sitting in Alias' chest, covered in grease and happy as can be."

Ironhide chuckled and shook his head. "That was evil and I love it."

They arrived at Wheeljack's lab a few minutes later. The room was crowded with Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Cade all working on Alias, and Skyfire–who was big enough to make just about any room crowded all by himself–sharing Teletraan's main terminal with Perceptor. Ironhide found it a little jarring to see Alias laid out on the table with her chest cavity disassembled, but he was more surprised to see that Anna was actually lying in the link machine instead of working on her Autobot with the others.

Clearly Optimus felt the same way because he frowned. "What's going on here?" he demanded, striding over to the smaller table. When Anna didn't react to his voice, his frown deepened. "Is she actually in the link now?"

"What's she linked  _to_?" Ironhide asked, because Alias was very obviously not powered up, nor capable of doing so.

"She's linked into Teletraan, Prime," Ratchet answered. "And before you ask, I'm the one that authorized it in your absence. Skyfire had an idea that I think you're going to like a lot."

Skyfire glanced at Prime and Ironhide and waved them over. "I started thinking about this after Alias chose that jet for her alt-mode," he explained. "We don't have many planes and we can certainly use another one, but the way she had to learn to use her cog made me think that she wouldn't have the same natural affinity for her new alt-mode that we do, either. I realized that she's going to need to learn to use that jet just like she's learning to do everything else we take for granted."

Ironhide followed Optimus over to the terminal and saw that the screen showed what appeared to be a flight simulator program. "You're using Teletraan to teach her to fly?" he asked, glancing at Optimus and seeing the understanding dawning on his face.

Skyfire nodded. "I contacted Skydive and he's uplinked into the simulation, too," he explained, and Prime's frown faded away altogether. Skydive was quite probably the most talented flyer the Autobots had ever had, and his knowledge of aerial warfare and tactics was unmatched. As far as Ironhide knew, no one had considered teaching her to fly at all–too many things were happening at once for anyone to think of everything right now–but if they had, Ironhide was certain Prime would've recalled Skydive from the Australian base to do so. "She's learning from the very best, and absolutely safely."

"What did you tell him about Alias?" Ironhide asked, remembering Prime's concerns about her being discussed.

"Nothing too specific," Skyfire said reassuringly. "Our communications should be secure, but I took no chances. I merely told him that we've been joined by a new Autobot who had decided to take a flying alt-mode to give us a little more air-power, but who hadn't been a flier on Cybertron. He was happy to help out with some lessons." He looked at Optimus. "I've even got her voice running through a scrambler. If the Decepticons do manage to pick up on the transmission, they won't be able to match her voice to any recordings they might've made when… well, you know."

Optimus nodded, starting to smile now. "You've taken every precaution I could have wished for. This is a very good idea," he said, inclining his head gratefully to the enormous scientist. "Thank you, Skyfire."

"Looks like she's having fun. That's downright nauseating," Ironhide commented as he watched the screen–if this was Anna's point of view, she was barrel-rolling like there was no tomorrow. Skydive's F-18 Super Hornet swooped through the frame as she leveled out, and then she began to follow him through some evasive maneuvers.

"The biggest challenge has been adjusting the simulation to accurately reflect her plane's capabilities," Perceptor said, walking over to stand beside Skyfire. He pulled up a new screen and scrolled through it, pointing at things like top speed and thrust. "That jet of hers doesn't just look good, Prime. It's much more maneuverable than anything we've ever seen, and much faster, too."

"We had to throttle her back after the third time she crashed," Skyfire added with a laugh. "So it's definitely good that we're doing this in a simulator."

Prime's eyebrows rose. "The  _third_  time she crashed?"

Perceptor nodded. "Skydive couldn't even keep up with her until we slowed her down. Primus help us when she gets out there for real. She's a bit of a daredevil and she likes to go very fast."

Optimus shook his head. "Why am I not surprised," he murmured, but he was smiling. He bent to watch the screen, but Ironhide really was getting a little motion-sick just watching the acrobatic loops and turns Skydive was leading her through. He wandered over to the big table instead. He was glad Optimus was feeling better, but that was enough of the flying lesson for him.

"How's it going over here?" he asked, looking down at Alias.

"Surprisingly well," Ratchet replied. "Give us two more days and we should have her up and running again."

Wheeljack glanced at the flight sim. "Hopefully she'll be done face-planting into mountains and buildings by then," he said dryly. "I'd really hate to do all this refurb again."

"Mountains and buildings, huh?"

Cade nodded, grinning. "And once straight into the ground. She was supposed to pull out of the dive but, well, she's a lot faster than they thought she was and Skydive was a bit late with his reminder."

"The fireball was impressive," Wheeljack agreed.

Ironhide snorted a laugh, making a mental note to tease Anna about that later. "Why anybody would want to swoop around like a maniac when they can keep all four wheels on the ground is a mystery to me," he said, shaking his head.

"Well, most humans dream of flying," Cade said, flipping his visor back down and starting to weld again. "I think it's the most common dream we have. If I were in her shoes, I'd have totally picked a plane for an alt-mode, too."

"Yeah, well, most humans are nuts," Ironhide muttered, and Cade laughed.


	23. We're On Our Side

Ratchet called a halt to the work on Alias around nine that night. Cade had just arrived in the common room and was contemplating the refrigerator with some vague idea of just making a sandwich for dinner when Optimus and Anna arrived with Wheeljack. He glanced up as Optimus lowered Anna carefully to the floor beside the table. "Hey, guys."

"Hi, Cade," Anna said, finding a chair and sitting down wearily. "I'm glad you're here. I was afraid I was going to have to play  _guess the frozen dinner_  again."

He put back the sandwich supplies and pulled out a package of pork chops instead. He wasn't sure how taxing the flight simulation was, but Anna always looked tired to him and he didn't feel right just making her a sandwich. It was clear that the circles around her eyes weren't entirely from bruises anymore. The father in him urged that he give her a hot meal. "I'm not sure my cooking's much of an improvement."

"Well, at least it'll be identifiable," she teased with a grin.

"No promises," he said, and she laughed. He looked up at Optimus as Wheeljack went to join Smokescreen in watching showing some kind of demolition derby on the enormous television–the kind of thing that Prime derisively called  _bloodsport_ , much to Cade's amusement. "How goes the hunt for the Nemesis?"

He shrugged. "Nothing yet," he replied, but he didn't seem worried. "It will take time. We sent the frequency to the secondary base, though, so we're monitoring the airwaves across the planet. As soon as any Decepticon calls in, we'll have them."

Anna looked a little surprised at that. "I didn't know you've got a second base. When did that happen?"

Optimus sat down near the table instead of joining the others. Seeing him beside the human-sized furniture only made him look that much more enormous. "About a year after you left," he told her. "Ultra Magnus came to Earth with a contingent of Autobots who had been under his command on Cybertron. They were offered sanctuary by the Australian government, and he and I agreed that they should accept. It has proved useful not to have all our personnel in one location, and besides, this base was close to capacity."

"Well, that makes sense." She propped her chin on her hands. "Just how many Autobots do you have on Earth now?"

"Well, you know everyone here," Optimus replied. "The Australian contingent is not as large as the one here, but Ultra Magnus commands a good group. Skydive, who you met today, is one of them, as well as Powerglide," he said, ticking them off on his fingers as he thought. "There's also Tracks and Mirage, and Cliffjumper."

Wheeljack spoke up without turning around. "Don't forget Brawn, Bluestreak, and Trailbreaker. And Huffer and First Aid take care of the medic duties down there."

"Grapple helps with that, too, when he's not inventing crazy things," added Smokescreen. "They've also got the remaining Wreckers–Roadbuster, Whirl, and Sandstorm." He glanced back at the group around the table for a moment. "And I'm so glad they're on the other side of the world with Magnus and not here with us."

"Hey, don't knock the Wreckers," Wheeljack said, hitting his shoulder.

"Saying that the Wreckers are insane is like saying water's wet," Smokescreen shot back. "It's not an insult, it's just a fact."

Anna looked impressed, but Cade was thinking about Crosshairs telling him that the Autobots could conquer the planet in a month. "I sure am glad y'all are on our side," he muttered as he finished seasoning the chops and put them in the pan.

Smokescreen snorted, turning back to his show. "Oh, we're not on your side. Humans messed that up with the Cemetery Wind crap. We're on  _our_  side."

"Now, Smokescreen, that was Lockdown's doing," Optimus said.

"Yeah, but humans chose to go along with it," he replied sourly. "I lost friends to those bastards, a lot of friends. You're good at the forgiveness thing, Prime, but I'm not."

Anna clenched her hands on the table. "I can't blame him, Optimus. I watched when Sentinel betrayed you," she said softly. "It was awful. And then the world agreed to exile you…"

Cade looked over at her, remembering watching the ill-fated shuttle launch with Tessa. He couldn't imagine how horrible that had to have been for Anna to see the Autobot ship explode. "Did you know about their plan to stay?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No. There was no way Optimus could've contacted me then. The Autobots were all under heavy surveillance. I had to wait and watch with everyone else, and just have faith that there was a plan." She smiled a little crookedly. "We've had words about that."

Optimus reached out and touched her hands with a careful fingertip. "You have to know that I would never have left without saying goodbye," he murmured, and she nodded.

"Which was what kept me from losing my mind when that shuttle blew up." She rested her head briefly against his finger. "And despite all that, you still came back and fought for us in Chicago, and you'd have thought that would've convinced our leaders that the Autobots were trustworthy, but then they started hunting you down… I wouldn't have blamed you for writing us all off after that and just leaving."

"A lot of us wanted to, only we  _couldn't_  leave after Starscream blew up the Xantium. We were trapped here when the humans turned into a great big bag of suck," Wheeljack said. Then he paused. "Um. Present company excluded, of course," he added.

Anna laughed and lifted her head. "I feel special, don't you, Cade?"

"Oh, very," he said, also chuckling.

"It does seem to be a characteristic of humanity that collectively they are easily led down wrong paths, but individually, they are capable of great acts of selflessness and bravery," Optimus said. He looked at Wheeljack and Smokescreen. "That is why I cannot fully abandon them."

"That big heart of yours worries me sometimes, you know," Anna murmured, shaking her head. "But that's why I had to pursue it when I saw the potential to make Energon from nuclear waste. Not only would it solve your Energon shortage and make the Autobots too powerful for humanity to threaten, it would put the entire world in your debt."

Cade put a bowl of frozen vegetables in the microwave. "I didn't think of it that way, but you have a pretty good point there," he said. If the Autobots were responsible for eliminating the threat of nuclear waste polluting the planet or being used as a terrorist weapon, the world as a whole would owe them big-time.

"And your determination to protect us worries  _me_  sometimes," Optimus replied, but he sounded like he was resigned to it.

"Well, you're just going to have to learn to live with it," Anna replied with the stubbornness that Cade had come to expect from her. "But speaking of that, when do I get to set up a lab and kidnap Perceptor and get back to work?"

"As soon as Alias is functional again," Optimus said. "Perceptor has already spoken to me about it. You'll have your lab as soon as you can use it."

"How much of a problem is it going to be not to have your research notes?" Wheeljack asked as Cade got out a couple plates and started dishing up the food. "Or is someone going to try to hack in and get your research from your team?"

Anna sat back. "No need. I have a backup stashed. All we need to do is get it. In fact, if anyone does hack into the project and try to access my notes, it won't do them a damn bit of good. Some things are wrong, some things are incomplete, some things I kept nowhere but in my own head. I might've been working for the government, but that doesn't mean that I ever intended to make Energon for them. No way in hell would I hand anyone that kind of leverage over the Autobots."

Cade raised his eyebrows. Yeah, human she might be, but Anna's loyalty was clearly to the Autobots. "And no one knows about your personal files?" he asked doubtfully. "You're sure?"

"I've had a little bit of experience in keeping secrets, Cade," Anna replied dryly. "My notes are stored on an encrypted hard drive in a computer that never had any form of internet connection. It requires a 40 character password, a retinal scan, and a fingerprint to unlock. Get any of that wrong and it will still unlock and give up a lot of nice juicy data, but just like the official project files, all of it will be just  _slightly_  incorrect." She grinned. "Build what it tells you and you'll have a working plasma bomb, not an Energon generator."

"Dude. Your girlfriend's scary, Prime. Remind me not to cross her," Smokescreen said, shaking his head.

Optimus looked both impressed and a little alarmed. "It's just never a good idea," he agreed.

Cade set her plate down and touched her hand with the handle of her fork. "I'd say you're paranoid, but I think you actually have a pretty good reason to be," he said as he went back for his own food. "So where is this backup stashed and when am I going to go get it?" When Optimus glanced at him, surprised, he raised an eyebrow. "What, you think one of you could do it without arousing suspicion? Of course I'm getting it."

"It's in a safe deposit box," Anna replied. "I'm almost positive that no one knows I rented the box, but I'll only give you the location and key when we're sure it's safe for you to go. I would rather start over from nothing than put you in danger."

Optimus nodded, clearly approving of this. "Besides a lab, your computer notes, and Perceptor, what else do you need for your research?"

She took another bite, considering her answer. "Well, a lot of equipment that would be easier for me to tell Perceptor about since he'll know what it is, but the most difficult thing to acquire will definitely be the actual spent nuclear fuel rods."

Cade stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. "Wait. What?"

Anna shrugged. "There's only so much I can do with computer simulations, Cade. If I'm going to make Energon from high-level waste, I do actually need to have some high-level waste."

"That will not be a problem," Optimus said, and Cade stared at him in shock at the casual way he said it.

"You're bringing nuclear waste  _here?_ " he said weakly. "And everyone's  _okay_  with that?"

Anna grinned at his reaction. "You really think that would be the most dangerous thing on this base? These guys are pretty much walking weapons of mass destruction. A few spent fuel rods should be the least of your worries."


	24. A Moment of Peace

Cade spent the next two days working on Alias again while Anna continued her flying lessons with Skydive in the simulation, under Skyfire's watchful eye. "She's getting fairly proficient," the enormous Autobot announced approvingly the second evening as they put the finishing touches on Alias and prepared to end Anna's link. "I'm about 75% certain that she won't crash when she actually gets out there."

"Oh, 75%, that's very reassuring. I'm sure Optimus will love hearing that," Cade laughed. Skyfire shrugged, grinning a little, too. He climbed out of Alias' rebuilt chest so Ratchet could reinstall her spark chamber, the last thing they needed to do. "Honestly, you guys are something else. I never would've guessed you could do all of this so quickly."

Wheeljack put his tools down and stretched expansively. "Well, you helped a lot with the tiny bits," he said. "You probably saved us at least a day by getting into all the little nooks and crannies for us."

Anna sat up, also stretching. "Did I hear someone say Alias is finished?"

"Almost," Perceptor replied. "Another hour, two at the outside."

She grinned hugely. " _Fantastic._  I can't wait to get back in there. You have no idea."

"Oh, I think they have some idea. I doubt they'd have busted their transistors rushing to get her repaired so quickly otherwise. Whatever they may have told you, that was not a two-day job." Everyone turned at Prime's voice as he entered the lab. He inclined his head to the scientists as he stopped beside Anna's table. "We are grateful."

Anna turned toward the sounds of Ratchet's tools as he attached the spark chamber's connections. "Thank you, all of you," she said solemnly. "I don't take your work for granted, I promise. If there's anything I can do to repay you, just say the word."

"One word is all it'll take–Energon," Ratchet replied, still working. "Our reserves are chronically low, but more so than usual lately, and the other base is even worse. We've had to restrict ground-bridge access to emergencies only."

Wheeljack nodded emphatically. "If you can really solve that problem for us, we'll make you a hundred Aliases."

"And that's actually why I'm here," Optimus said as he put his hand down beside Anna so that she could climb on. "I've had several very interesting discussions with our former allies today. I have persuaded them to facilitate anything you need for your experiments."

"Wow," Anna said, raising her eyebrows. "Anything?"

Optimus nodded. "Including whatever nuclear materials you require, in any amount."

Cade whistled low. "What did you have to promise to get that kind of agreement, and who did you have to promise it to?" he asked, and Anna's smile faded immediately.

"Nothing I would not have agreed to anyway," Optimus replied before she could protest. He lifted her when she was settled on his palm. "Many on your planet are eager to find a solution to your nuclear waste problem. It was mostly a matter of convincing them that we are trustworthy enough to responsibly handle the materials."

"And if that's not an understatement, nothing is. The world hasn't exactly been on your side recently," Anna said. "What did you really do?"

"To use a human phrase, I called in some favors." Optimus smiled at her even though she couldn't see it. "Earth owes us much, though its leaders seem to have forgotten it. I merely reminded them."

Cade shook his head. "I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation," he murmured, but Prime's smile only grew a little sharper before he went serious again.

"We will have guests by midday tomorrow," he told the scientists. "Will Alias be ready? I do not want to reveal Anna's presence here unless we absolutely must, but I have told them that we have an Autobot scientist who will be able to tell them what we need. If she can't be there as Alias, we will need to work out some kind of radio link with one of you."

Perceptor nodded. "She'll be ready, Prime. We'll make sure of it. Anna will be able to link in first thing in the morning and we'll work out any final kinks before they get here."

Ratchet glanced up briefly as he prepared to weld the connections to her spark chamber. "Go eat something and get some sleep, Anna," he ordered. "Tomorrow's going to be the real deal. Be ready."

.

Anna couldn't fall asleep, although she did try. The anticipation was almost overwhelming, though. The time she'd spent as Alias over the last week had been one of the most amazing experiences of her life, and knowing that she was only hours away from finally getting to play a role as an actual, fully-functional Autobot… the wakeful seconds ticked by no matter how hard she tried to follow Ratchet's order to sleep.

"You are not resting."

She smiled into her pillow–she should've known she couldn't fool Optimus. "I'm excited," she admitted. "I've missed Alias, and I've really missed my work."

"I know," he said, and she heard him shift in his chair–like everything else on the base, it was not confined to one shape, and she knew that it reclined almost flat when Optimus charged at night. She pictured him turning toward her. "I am glad that you'll be able to continue it."

"Did you really threaten world leaders to get me what I need?" she asked, and he chuckled.

"I was prepared to, but surprisingly, it wasn't necessary. Not everyone turned against us, even here. To be honest, it took less persuasion than I had anticipated. I especially expected more resistance to allowing us access to the nuclear materials."

She smiled again. "You really don't know how awe-inspiring you are to us," she pointed out. "When a giant warrior robot asks for something, our first instinct is to say  _yes sir._ "

He huffed. "Doesn't seem to work on you."

"Well, of course not," she laughed. "I've gotten to know what's inside and the exterior doesn't scare me anymore."

"Did it ever?" Optimus asked, sounding truly surprised at the idea that she might ever have feared him.

"You mean when an enormous alien death-bot fell out of the sky in a huge fireball that nearly demolished my house? Why, no, that didn't scare me at all, why would it?" He snorted at her description. "But that only lasted until you started talking and all you were worried about was if you'd hurt me and if your Autobots were all right. You never said a word about your own injuries. I couldn't stay frightened of you after that." She rolled onto her back, giving up the pretense of trying to sleep. "And back on topic, if I woke up one morning all soft-spoken and obedient, you'd hate it."

"I might not. Let's try it and find out–for science, of course."

She laughed again at his teasing. "You first, big guy."

"I would, but alas, I am constrained by my role as Prime," Optimus replied sadly. "I cannot be seen to take orders. It's in the contract."

Anna grinned. He was in a playful mood tonight and she loved it. "Good excuse, very nicely done. I'll give you that one. I'm constrained by my role as a woman. We don't take orders, either."

"I've noticed," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice despite his dry tone. "Also, if it makes you feel any better, you terrify me on a regular basis."

"Gotta keep you interested somehow, don't I?" He groaned and she laughed. After a moment, she said, "You're not resting, either. Am I keeping you awake?"

"Not in the way you mean. I'm a little excited, too. You aren't the only one who has missed your time as Alias," he admitted. She heard him get up and walk over to the bed. "If neither of us are going to rest, let's go somewhere."

She reached out and felt his hand beside her. "Where?" she asked, throwing back her covers and climbing onto his hand without hesitation.

"Outside," he replied, lifting her to his shoulder. "You have been indoors since you arrived and I'm sure you'd like to get out for a little while."

"Oh, God yes," she agreed at once. "I've forgotten what fresh air feels like." She settled herself on his shoulder, wrapping an arm around a strut, and he stood up.

The base was quiet as Optimus walked toward the exit. Anna closed her eyes, pretending that she wasn't seeing where they were going because she chose not to, not because she couldn't. She felt the difference in the air when he passed through the final door and she breathed deeply, letting it out in a sigh. Crickets sang and somewhere far overhead, the high call of bats filled the air as he continued walking. "I've always loved the way the air smells at night," she murmured, leaning her head against the support beside her. "This was a good idea, Optimus. Thank you."

She felt the shift as he walked up an incline. "It is peaceful here at night," he said quietly, coming to a stop after a few moments. "No planes overhead, no highways nearby, just rolling hills and a few trees. Metroplex is in a little valley between two hills and we're at the top of the tallest hill now, facing east over the fields that surround it. There is a large oak tree here, taller than me. We are beside it now. They used to keep cattle here, but there are none now and the grass has grown tall. It's just starting to turn gold. You can hear the wind through it–listen." He fell quiet for a moment and Anna heard the whisper of wind through the grass, and she could nearly see the ripples it made in the moonlight through his words. "The breeze makes it dance like waves on the ocean."

"What about the sky?" she whispered, enchanted by the word-picture he painted.

"The moon is just over half-full. It gives enough light to see, but not enough to block out the stars. They are bright and clear out here, far from the city lights," Optimus replied. "There are a few thin clouds, and when one passes over the moon, it glows silver rather than blocking the light. There is a little mist on the ground from the little rain shower we had earlier. The moonlight makes it look like a silver fog."

She smiled, imagining it. "It sounds beautiful," she murmured.

"There is a small pond just over the next rise," Optimus said, and she added it to her mental image. "Often, deer will come to drink from it, although there aren't any there now. We ensure that it never goes dry for them."

And that was so much what she would expect from him–as well as the way he'd just started describing their surroundings for her without her having to say a word–that it nearly brought tears to her eyes. "How did I ever get so lucky as to find you?" she whispered.

She felt his shoulder move as he reached up, and she slid onto his hand again. "It was the best catastrophic, nearly-fatal crash landing of my life," he said, holding her carefully in the closest thing he could give her to a hug, and she heard the smile in his tender tone as she laughed. "Definitely worth it."

.

Optimus stayed out there until he was certain that Anna had fallen asleep in his hand, and even then, he didn't go back inside. Moments of peace like this were rare. He had no desire to cut this one short. Instead, he carefully sat down beneath the oak tree and just held her, glad that she seemed to be sleeping peacefully for once. She didn't often remember it in the mornings–or if she did, she never mentioned it–but he awakened her from nightmares of her captivity every night, usually several times. In fact, Anna hadn't had one single night of unbroken sleep since she'd arrived. Calming her down when she was nearly incoherent with terror was a skill Optimus hated that he was having to learn. Seeing her truly relaxed and untroubled now eased his worry for her.

When dawn began to lighten the eastern sky, he finally stood and carried Anna back into the base, trying to move as smoothly and silently as possible in hopes that she'd be able to sleep a little longer. He wanted to get her safely back in his quarters before the others started stirring and making noise. He skulked through the base and saw no one on the way but Inferno on his way to his turn guarding Starscream, and a quick finger to his lips kept him quiet until they'd passed. Optimus actually managed to get to his destination without the movement or any noise awakening her. He breathed a silent sigh of relief as he stepped through the door.

But then the door to closed behind him with a solid thud, and Optimus bit back a curse as Anna jerked awake with a gasp.

"Easy, Anna," Optimus murmured soothingly, resisting the urge to close his fingers around her to prevent her from falling. He'd learned the hard way that any kind of restriction before she could orient herself upon awakening was a sure way to turn her from startled to panicked. Instead he just moved enough to ensure that if she did fall, she'd land on the mattress. "You're safe. We are in my quarters. You're not in bed because I'm holding you."

Anna caught her balance against his thumb and after a moment, the wildness left her eyes and she nodded. "Sorry," she said, pressing a hand to her chest as if to slow her heart rate. "I… I forgot where I was."

"You're far too quick to apologize. I'm the one who woke you up. Shouldn't I be the one asking for forgiveness?" Optimus asked, tone deliberately light, but he hated that something as simple as being unexpectedly awoken triggered fear for her now. He hoped that her night terrors would ease the longer she was here and started to truly feel safe again. And he supposed that this was actually some progress–she'd gasped, yes, but she hadn't screamed this time.

She yawned and rubbed a hand over her face. "Is it time to go? I'll forgive you if you say yes."

"Then I'll say yes to ensure that you forgive me," he replied, and she laughed. "But actually it's very early, about 5am. You could try to sleep a little more," he added, because she never awakened looking truly rested and today was no exception. He knew she hadn't slept any before their trip outside and her nap in his hand had only been about four hours. "You seemed to be resting well. Good dreams?"

"No dreams, and that's best of all," she replied, sliding off his hand onto the bed and stretching hugely. "I don't think I should push my luck. Anyway, I'm awake now and ready to get moving, but don't let me wake the others early. I know they've worked really hard to get Alias back online for me so quickly. I don't want to put them out any more than I already have."

"I'm sure they'd tell you that it was no trouble at all," Optimus said, but when she made a dubious face, he added, "I didn't say they wouldn't be lying. I won't awaken them, don't worry. Besides, I wouldn't dare deliver you to Ratchet without having breakfast. By the time you're dressed and fed, it might even be a decent hour."

Anna snorted and opened the little chest of drawers beside her bed, pulling out a change of clothes before feeling her way along the wall to the bathroom Metroplex had created there for her. Optimus sat down to wait for her, marveling a little at how comfortable this routine had become for him. Before she'd left, Anna had occupied her own rooms down the corridor from his, but when Bee and Cade had found her so terribly injured, Optimus hadn't even considered putting her anywhere but in his quarters. He couldn't stand the thought of not being right beside her while she was so vulnerable, both physically and emotionally. If she needed him, he wanted to be right there.

Now that she was almost physically recovered, though, Optimus still hadn't offered her quarters of her own. It was partially that he didn't want her to awaken from her nightmares blind and alone, or worse than that,  _not_  wake up and suffer through them. But more than that, it just felt… natural, knowing that hers would be the last face he saw at night and the first one he saw in the morning, and he didn't want to change it. He'd even put off bringing in furniture for her because he'd feared she might ask to move into a room of her own, but she hadn't seemed to want the separation any more than he did. Optimus smiled a little. He'd done more research on human relationships than he would ever admit, and one thing that he'd learned was that moving in together was a very big deal for human couples. It signaled a depth and stability to the relationship, a permanence.

And after Ironhide's talk had gotten him to finally stop resisting, Optimus was finding that he liked the thought of permanence very much.


	25. You're an Autobot Now

Anna came out a little later, her hair slightly damp. "Are you still here?"

"Where else would I be?" he replied, a little surprised that she thought he would've left her.

"Oh, I don't know, it's not like you have any other duties at all. I mean, clearly nothing's more important than babysitting me, right?"

Optimus frowned at the sharp edge to her words that was so at-odds with the path his own thoughts had taken. "I thought we already discussed this," he said, putting his hand down for her. "I want to be here with you. If I wanted to be somewhere else, that's where I'd be. Stop acting like you're some kind of burden I'm forced to bear."

Anna sighed, resting one hand on his instead of climbing on. "I'm sorry, Optimus," she said softly. "I shouldn't have talked to you that way. I'm just frustrated, that's all. I got the bottles mixed up in the shower, and then I dropped my brush and couldn't find it, and… being blind  _sucks_. I don't mean to take it out on you."

"Your frustration is understandable," he replied, gentling his own tone. "And you don't need to apologize for showing me how you feel. I want your honesty, Anna."

She finally climbed onto his hand. "Then if you want to know how I really feel, give me a gun and let me shoot something until it explodes because I'm  _pissed!_  I feel trapped all the time, and helpless, and useless, and it is making me crazy!"

Optimus lifted her up but didn't put her on his shoulder this time, wondering if she took as much comfort from being held as he did from holding her. "We have a great deal of very large guns and we can certainly start your weapons training if it would make you feel better," he said, imagining lending her his barrage-cannon and setting Starscream up as her target. That would probably be therapeutic for both of them. Still, he knew that what she truly craved was freedom. "But instead of destroying things, how about we get you linked into Alias and let you fly?"

Her instant, eager smile was exactly what he'd been hoping for. "Oh, that would definitely help," she agreed.

Cade was already in the common room when Optimus and Anna arrived. "You're up early," Prime commented, a little surprised to see him cooking.

"Well, I thought you two probably would be," Cade replied, and he set a plate of waffles in Anna's usual place. "And I also thought that if I already had some food ready, she couldn't nag you into letting her skip breakfast."

"Wow, am I really that predictable?" Anna asked as Optimus put her down by the table.

"Yes," they answered together, and she laughed at them.

"Ratchet said he's planning for you to stay in the link all day," Cade told her as he put a glass of juice and a dish of sausages beside her plate. "I'm under orders to feed you until you're about to pop, and if you argue, he says to tell you that he'll pull you out the instant your blood sugar starts to drop. So eat up."

"He certainly knows the right way to motivate her," Optimus observed as Anna began eating without another word, and Cade grinned.

By the time she insisted that she couldn't possibly eat anything else, it was nearly 6:30 and the rest of the Autobots were stirring. Bumblebee came in and beeped a friendly greeting. "Hey there, Bee, you've been scarce for the last couple days," Anna replied, sending a smile the direction of his voice. "Where've you been?"

Bee replied with a quote from 300 before switching to Stephen Seagal's voice. " _These hills swarm with our scouts–just lookin' for bad guys._ "

"Find any?" Cade asked.

" _Neither hide nor hair._ " Bee shook his head with a sad little hoot. " _But I ain't givin' up,_ " he added.

"None of us are," Optimus agreed. "We will find them."

"When I get better at flying, I can help, too," Anna offered.

Cade glanced at Prime's face, seeing him start to say  _no_  and immediately reconsider it. Cade grinned–Optimus was learning. "We will see what's needed," was all he said before looking up at the ceiling. "Teletraan, is anyone in the lab yet?"

"Yes, Optimus Prime. Ratchet, Wheeljack, Perceptor, and Skyfire arrived and began work on the prototype approximately fourteen and a half minutes ago," the computer replied.

Anna put down her fork and stood up. "Then we're fourteen and a half minutes late."

Optimus shook his head, smiling, but he picked her up and put her on his shoulder again. "So impatient," he murmured.

"And when was patience ever one of my virtues?"

P!nk started blasting from Bee's speakers. " _I'm comin' up, so you better get this party started!_ " he played, dancing along.

Optimus rolled his eyes at the young Autobot's antics. Then he glanced down at Cade. "Are you coming?"

"Definitely. I put in some hard work on Alias, too. I don't want to miss her rebirth," he said, and Optimus offered him a hand. When he was settled on his other shoulder, Optimus led Bee out of the common room and down to Wheeljack's lab.

Ratchet looked up when they entered. "Good morning," he said, and that was the extent of his small-talk before he got down to business. "Anna, we've got a lot to cover before Prime's guests arrive, so we need to get started right away. Before you link in, I need to let you know that you're going to be at full power for the first time. You  _will_  notice the difference. You're going to be faster, stronger. You need to be careful until you get used to it. You're big and you could hurt someone, especially Cade."

"Got it," Anna replied, just as serious as Ratchet.

Ratchet looked at Cade as Optimus put him down on the walkway they'd installed for him around Alias' table. "And Cade, try not to get underfoot."

Cade raised an eyebrow. "You think avoiding getting stepped on around here is a new concern for me?"

"What else?" Anna asked, still on Prime's shoulder.

"We've disabled everything except for Prime's kill-switch and the automatic emergency damage disconnect. No more testing, no more training wheels. You're an Autobot now," Wheeljack replied from his post beside Alias. "We'll also be slightly increasing the energy level of the link to balance out Alias' increased power, and that's another thing we haven't done before. You should notice a change in the way Alias responds to your thoughts, but we're not sure how drastic it's going to be. You're going to have to tell us if it gives you any problems."

"You need to be honest with us on this, Anna. It's important," Ratchet told her before she could answer. "I know you're stubborn and you hate to quit, but now isn't the time. Don't try to push through it if you start getting fatigued. If you're with our visitors and start feeling wrong, just leave the room and shut down. Don't worry about them seeing anything or getting suspicious–it's much more important that you don't strain yourself. Your health and safety come before any concerns about secrecy. If you feel the need to shut down and don't think you can get out of sight first, shut down anyway and let us deal with them. If you can't agree to these terms, we'll rig a radio link for you with Perceptor and wait to reactivate Alias until the humans leave."

Anna nodded. "I have no problem with your terms, Ratchet," she said solemnly. "I won't take any chances. You have my word."

Optimus frowned a little. This kind of talk wasn't exactly what he'd expected after his  _make it safer_  order. "This sounds more dangerous than what we've done previously. Would it be better to make these changes individually rather than together?"

Perceptor shook his head. "No, Prime, they must go together. Raising her to full-power necessitates the increased link levels, and if we increase the link levels, Alias needs to be at full power to balance it. This actually is the safest way to go about it."

Wheeljack nodded, agreeing. "And we're only anticipating that she'll feel different, not an increased danger level. We've learned quite a lot through Anna's prior links. We understand the energy transfer now better than we ever have before. Trust us, Prime, we wouldn't be doing this if we weren't very confident that it won't put her at risk."

"We just need her to let us know if there are any problems we haven't foreseen," Ratchet finished. "As I said before, we're in uncharted territory with all of this. We've done everything we can to make this safe for you, Anna, but you're the only one in your head. You'll likely feel things going wrong before we could ever detect it from the outside. No one doubts your bravery, but today is the time for caution, not risks."

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Prime asked her quietly.

"Yes, I'm very sure. Don't worry, Optimus," Anna replied, reaching out and resting a hand against the side of his head. "I understand the reasoning behind everything they're saying. I want to be able to link with Alias frequently, you know, and I won't be able to do that if I do something foolish today and hurt myself or someone else." She wrapped her arms around his shoulder strut again in a hug. "And I meant it when I promised you that I wouldn't take any unnecessary chances."

Ratchet looked satisfied by that. "Good," he said. "Then we're ready when you are."

"Just one more thing," Skyfire said as Optimus put her down on the link table. "Provided everything goes well, Drift and I are planning to go with you on your first flight. The throttle-control we had on you for most of your simulation time won't be there anymore. You're much faster than we are–don't leave us behind. Prime would probably get mad if we lost you."

Anna smiled and nodded. "I'll behave, I promise."

"I'm curious to see what that looks like," Optimus teased.

"Well, take notes, big guy, and don't get used to it," she shot back, grinning. She settled on the narrow bed and went still as it slid into the open-ended link machine.

Alias powered on almost instantly–it was the fastest link-in Optimus had seen yet. Her eyes lit up and immediately went wide. "Whoa," she breathed, still lying flat on her back.

"Good  _whoa_  or bad  _whoa_?" Wheeljack asked.

"Just a generalized  _whoa_ whoa," she replied. "I feel… I feel more  _present_  than I was before. Like I'm not driving Alias–like I  _am_  Alias." She reached toward Optimus, who took her hand. "It's blowing my mind a little bit, if you want to know."

"That should be because of the increased power levels," Perceptor replied, tapping away at the computer beside the machine. He made an appreciative sound at whatever he saw on the screen. "Oh, very nice link, very nice indeed, quite strong and stable. It looks like the best one yet."

Skyfire came over and pulled up a real-time 3D brain scan projection that hovered over the console. He and Ratchet bent over it, studying the pattern of light that indicated which areas of her human brain were active. Optimus was no neuroscientist but it looked to him like her brain was nearly dormant except for some slow firing in the deepest areas around her brain stem. Ratchet pulled up another 3D model beside the first, this time of Alias' positronic central processor. Unlike her human brain, it was lit up like a fireworks display.

"This is excellent," Ratchet said happily, waving a hand to turn the model this way and that. "It's exactly what we were hoping to see. This link is much deeper than the others–your brain is in near-complete stasis, with Alias handling almost all of your higher functions."

"Basically, you feel like you're more  _present_  because you are," Wheeljack told her, sounding very pleased. "This is probably as close as you'll ever get to truly inhabiting Alias."

Alias' wonder showed in her face. "It's amazing," she murmured, holding Prime's gaze.

"Would you like to sit up?" Optimus asked, strongly reminded of that very first link. When she nodded, he helped her up and again didn't let go of her hand. All the scientific explanations aside, there was only one thing he needed to know. "How do you feel?"

"Wonderful," she replied immediately. Then she suddenly let go of Optimus and grabbed a startled Ratchet, pulling him into a hug before doing the same to an equally surprised Wheeljack and Perceptor. Skyfire was out of reach but he was actually the least awkward of all of them, even bending down to accept his hug when she got up to give it to him. Whatever reservations he'd originally had about her, it was clear that he fully accepted her now. "Thank you all," Anna said, turning and looking at them all in turn. "This is amazing. I can never thank you enough."

Optimus crossed his arms over his chest as Bumblebee predictably wolf-whistled again. "No hug for me, I notice," he grumbled.

Anna laughed and walked back over to him. "Come on, you're not the jealous type."

"You don't know. I could be," Optimus said, pretending to sulk and making her laugh again. "Maybe when you start giving out hugs, I want the first one for myself. The second one, too."

She rolled her eyes but took hold of his wrists and uncrossed his arms, then leaned against him and put her arms around his waist. "Better now?" she asked when he wrapped both arms around her in return.

"Not yet. I'll let you know when," he said, and when she laughed at him again, the rest of the Autobots joined in. Cade winked at him and nodded as though approving of his silliness, and Optimus smiled in return, thinking of how good his advice to get Anna outside and away from all the science and stress had been. He owed the human for that.

Still holding her, Optimus looked over at Ratchet. The medic hadn't moved an inch. "What else do you need to do here?" he asked. "I know she is anxious to fly."

Ratchet jumped when Optimus addressed him. He still looked more than a little stunned at being hugged. As far as Prime knew, that was the first time it had ever happened to him. "Ah, right. Well. Nothing that I can think of," the medic replied, earning an excited smile from Alias. "Just remember to tell us if you start feeling strange. Other than that, as Wheeljack said, we're finished with the testing phase of this project."

Her smile grew, brightening her whole face. "I'd hug you again for that if I didn't think you'd fight me," she teased, and the medic looked positively alarmed at the prospect.

"Oh, well! That's not actually, ah, necessary, so, um, please don't," he stammered, backing around the table and holding up his tablet computer like a shield. Alias giggled and that only seemed to make it worse. He pointed at Optimus as if grabbing a lifeline. "I think your hugs are spoken for right now!"

"I'd give one up just for the entertainment value," Prime said, amused. Bee started forward hopefully and Optimus frowned at him. "No, absolutely no hugs for you," he cut the yellow bot off before he could even ask, and Bee made a sad trombone sound.

"What do you say, Ratchet? One more great big hug?" Alias offered, then laughed again as Ratchet began to look truly panicked.

Optimus finally released Alias and took her hand instead, taking pity on the medic. "All right, let's stop terrifying poor Ratchet. If they're done with you, come with me and I'll brief you on the humans who will be coming in a few hours," he said. When no one objected, he nodded gratefully at them all and led her out and into the smaller lab next door where he'd spoken with Cade.


	26. Duty Is Overrated

As soon as the door closed behind them, Optimus led her over to the central chair and sat down, then immediately pulled her onto his lap. She looked up at him, amused. "Is this a briefing or an excuse to cuddle?" she teased. "You're not really jealous."

"Is there any reason it can't be both?" he asked, and treasured the sound of her laughter and the way she relaxed into his embrace. Optimus cupped a hand around the back of her neck, bringing her close so he could rest his forehead against hers. "And I'm not jealous, but I am greedy, and I'm not going to have a chance to be alone with you for the rest of the day," he said, running his fingers over her cheek and across her jaw. "You can't blame me for seizing whatever opportunities I can."

Alias smiled and shifted on his lap so that she could tuck her arm beneath his and snuggle a little closer. She rested her other hand over his spark. "Not at all," she replied softly. "That definitely wasn't a complaint."

"Good."

Optimus closed his eyes and allowed himself this time to not worry about the incoming humans, or to think of finding the Decepticons, or to worry about the critical Energon shortage, or any of the hundred other things that he had to juggle as Prime–things he'd been neglecting, if he was honest. Instead he concentrated on savoring the simple act of holding her. It was surprising how much he'd missed it even after so short a time, and he spared a brief, grateful thought to whoever on the build team had decided to create Alias so close to his own size. She fit perfectly against him like a piece he had never known he was missing.

After a few minutes, she spoke again. "This is another one of those times when the human part of me wishes that Autobots kissed. You said you do something else. What is it?"

He sighed. "You don't know how much I wish that I had time to show you," he said regretfully. Just the thought of sharing with her was a little intoxicating. He let some of that longing show in his voice, holding her a little tighter. "Trust me, when we are able to take the time, I will be very glad to show you what we do."

She poked his side and pulled back to glare at him. "You are a horrible tease, Optimus Prime. You don't get to say things like that to me and then just walk out of here like it's nothing," she growled.

Oh, if she only knew. "It is not  _nothing_  to me. It is because it is very much  _something_  that I refuse to rush what should be savored," he assured her.

She huffed a sigh but seemed slightly mollified. "Just so you know, I'm keeping count. That's twice I've asked and you've said no. It's a good thing I love you or I'd be getting really pissed right about now," she grumbled.

"Yes, it really is, isn't it?" he replied, and laughed when she hit him this time. "I love you too, you demanding creature, and I don't like saying no any more than you like hearing it."

Alias settled back against him, resting her head on his shoulder this time. "So tell me about these people who are coming," she said as she ran a fingertip ever so lightly over the flames that adorned his chest-plates. "You really did have something to tell me about them, right?"

"Yes," Optimus said, savoring her gentle exploration. Since the advent of Alias, he'd discovered a near-human craving for touch, and even though it made it a bit hard for him to concentrate, he felt no urge to stop her. "They are members of a military team called NEST, an alliance between the Autobots and several human nations. Major Lennox was our liaison for several years and I still consider him a friend. Even when NEST was disavowed and officially stood down, he risked much to continue to aid us. He will be leading the team that arrives, and he has promised to keep that team as small as possible."

"NEST," Alias echoed thoughtfully. "It's not an organization I'm familiar with. Do you think he'll know about my project?"

"I am unsure," he replied honestly. "I have noticed that your government does not often share information even between its own branches. But if Lennox knows anything of it, it will make it much easier to capture Thompson and ensure the safety of the rest of your team."

"You trust him?" she asked, tracing the lines of his Autobot symbol now.

Optimus nodded, trying not to shiver and wondering what was so compelling about such a simple thing. "Yes, as much as I can trust any human with government ties now. He has fought beside us many times. Were he to leave the Army, I would offer him a place here."

Alias thought about that for a moment, fingers still moving, stroking, nearly hypnotic. "Who is he likely to bring with him?"

He closed his eyes to better concentrate on what she was doing. The path of her fingertip left tingles in its wake. "His second in command is named Epps," he replied after a moment, remembering the thread of their conversation again. "Lennox will… he'll likely bring him. I'm not sure who else. Maybe some of their scientists."

Alias' fingers went still and she raised her head, startled. "Am I distracting you with this?" she asked as she pulled her hand back.

"Yes. Don't stop," he replied, catching it and returning it to his chest. "I like it."

She stared at him for a moment, now clearly stunned, but soon she began to smile. "I didn't think Cybertronians were much interested in physical affection as a rule. I mean, I think that hug scared Ratchet half to death," she said, but to his satisfaction, her fingers started their wandering again.

"If that is the rule, then it appears that I am the exception to it. I'm discovering that I like almost everything you do," Optimus admitted, and he pretended to quake in fear when she laughed in a very satisfied way. "I beg you not to use it against me too much."

"Oh, I'm going to use it against you so,  _so_ much. I mean, it's going to be pretty much constant," she replied in a purely wicked voice with an evil grin to match. He groaned, resigning himself to the fact that she had yet another way to bend him to her will and thinking that he probably should be a little more upset about that. When she rested her head on his shoulder again, though, he couldn't regret anything. "Why can't we tell them to come tomorrow and just hide out in here all day?" she sighed, drawing a gentle line down the center of his chest, right over his spark.

"Don't tempt me," he replied, because the same thought had already occurred to him. Having to tell her no when she'd asked about the Cybertronian equivalent of a kiss hadn't been easy, and with every caress she gave him, all his reasons for waiting seemed progressively less important. He checked his internal clock and groaned again, this time meaning it. "We should probably go back out there. Skyfire is waiting to show you how to fly, and I need to make preparations for Lennox and his team."

Alias sighed again. "You know how much I'm looking forward to flying," she told him, "so I hope it makes you feel really guilty to know that I'd rather stay here with you than do that."

On the contrary, it made Optimus feel like the king of the universe. "I'll make it up to you," he promised.

"You better," she said, making a fist and thumping his shoulder. "Soon."

Alias reluctantly got to her feet and Optimus followed her to the door, but he stopped her for one more embrace before she could open it. Resting his forehead against hers, he closed his eyes and just savored the feel of holding her close. She ran a hand over his shoulders, yet another caress that made him question whether he really needed to meet with Lennox's team after all. He held her for a moment longer before finally pulling away with a sigh and taking her hand instead. "Come on, let's go before I change my mind about telling the world to take a hike for a day so you can finish dismantling my sense of duty."

Alias was still laughing when Optimus led her outside. The sun was fully up now and she looked around, taking in everything, before turning and gazing up at him with an expression so full of love, he captured the image in his memory banks so he could save it forever. "It's just how I imagined it last night," she whispered.

Optimus smiled back, and suddenly the decision he'd been wrestling with didn't seem so difficult at all. Unfortunately, now was not the time to discuss it, especially with Skyfire, Bee, Crosshairs, Drift, and Hoist all waiting for them atop the hill. He reluctantly shelved it for later and nodded toward the group. "Come on. You're going to love how it looks from the air," he said instead, wishing he could fly to see it with her. "No crashing into anything today," he added. "I don't want you grounded again so soon. I have plans for you for after our guests leave."

She shivered and squeezed his hand. "You just ensured that I will be the most careful pilot in the world," she promised.

"Good," he said with feeling, and she smiled.

Skyfire waved when he saw them. "Over here," he called, and Optimus led her up to the group.

"You could not have asked for a lovelier day to learn to fly," Drift greeted her.

"The weather conditions are perfect," Skyfire agreed. "There is little wind and perfect visibility. Are you staying to watch, Prime?"

Optimus shook his head sadly. "Only for a moment, I'm afraid. Duty calls."

"I'm surprised you don't tell duty to get stuffed," Crosshairs remarked, and Alias snickered, clearly remembering how close she'd come to convincing him to do just that. "It's not every day your girl takes her first flight."

"Well, I'm not leaving just yet. Duty can wait until I see her airborne," Optimus told him.

"That's more like it," the sniper replied, grinning. Then he looked at Alias. "You ready?"

She nodded eagerly. "Very, very ready."

"Remember, don't leave me too far behind," Skyfire cautioned, and then he transformed into his own plane mode, a heavily modified VF-1 Valkyrie, and took off. Drift also transformed into his helicopter form and hovered nearby, waiting for her to join them.

Optimus smiled down at her as Skyfire circled overhead. "Have fun," he said, releasing her hand and stepping back.

Alias gave him a bright grin as her jacket unfurled into the angelic wings Optimus found so beautiful. "Trust me," she said as her transformation into the F/A-XX took hold, "I will!" And a moment later, her engines roared and she leapt into the sky with a loud whoop of joy.

Optimus shaded his eyes, watching her soar almost straight up. Her excited cry became an even more elated laugh as she turned in a series of big loops and twists. Crosshairs laughed too, her high-spirits contagious. "You know, I've never been tempted to fly before, but that looks like fun," he said, grinning.

"Indeed it does," Optimus agreed as he followed her progress. After a few minutes of exuberant aerial tricks, Alias descended back down to where Skyfire had been patiently circling. He watched her take a position just off his wingtip and start to follow him through a series of basic evasive techniques. Then Prime sighed. "Much as I wish I could stay and watch, I truly do need to get to work. I have put off too much for too long," he said sadly.

Crosshairs leaned against the sturdy oak at the top of the hill. "Don't worry, Prime," he said. "She's in good hands. Go do your thing." Bumblebee hummed an agreement, nodding, and Optimus reluctantly reentered Metroplex.


	27. Alias Has a Blast

Four hours later, Crosshairs was sitting in the shade of the lone oak finishing up cleaning his guns while Bee and Hoist sparred nearby. Drift had landed about two hours ago when the jets had started air combat drills and it became clear that he had no hope of keeping up. Instead, he was supervising the two scouts in their sparring match, giving the warriors pointers while Skyfire and Alias continued to zoom around overhead. Crosshairs occasionally caught a glimpse of her flying literal circles around the big scientist and laughed quietly to himself. Even after several straight hours of drills, Alias still seemed to be having a blast.

Optimus had checked in twice, once coming out in person for a few minutes and once checking in over the com when they'd tested her max speed and her first sonic boom had shaken the valley. Both times Crosshairs had given him the same report–all was well, she was doing fine, there was no sign of the humans.

As though summoned by his thoughts, Optimus radioed again. "Crosshairs, report."

He finished screwing the newly cleaned barrel back onto his gun and sighted down it as he replied. "They're still doing combat drills, Prime. From here, it looks like everything's still going great." He smiled a little, snapping the clip back in and chambering a round. "She's much better at this than you'd think a human with no piloting experience would be. She's actually giving Skyfire a run for his money and she hasn't hit the ground even once."

Optimus chuckled. "I'm glad to hear it," he replied dryly. "Keep an eye out. Lennox and his team called in and said they're approximately five minutes out. I am unable to join you just now but I will be finished here in fifteen minutes or so, and I will come out to welcome them."

Drift glanced up, clearly also hearing the transmission. "I will scout along the roads and guide them in, Prime," he said, already transforming into his helicopter mode.

"Notify me as soon as they're within sight. Prime out."

Crosshairs holstered his reassembled guns and stood, looking up toward the dueling planes again. He hadn't been exaggerating with his report to Optimus. Skyfire's vastly superior experience gave him the advantage in strategy, but Alias' speed and maneuverability meant that he wasn't scoring many hits on her with the harmless light guns they were using either. And as Drift had pointed out after she'd bitten Starscream, Alias had a knack for doing the unexpected, and that was always a plus in combat. It was pretty fun to watch them, actually, like a high-flying game of aerial tag.

He flipped down his goggles to get a zoomed-in view on Alias, who had recently figured out that transforming into her winged robot form–something Drift had nicknamed angel-mode–would let her glide and abruptly lose speed. She'd started doing it whenever Skyfire got too close. She did it now and Skyfire zoomed past her, giving her a chance to shift back into jet-mode and fire at him. Skyfire spun down, trying to avoid her, but she jolted that explosive acceleration of hers into high gear and started to gain on him, firing all the while.

A bright red dot appeared on Alias' wing as she scored a direct hit on Skyfire. Crosshairs frowned–Skyfire couldn't possibly target her from his position in front of her and Drift had given up the game hours ago, and no one else was participating in this exercise.

… and come to think of it, the light guns' targeting lasers were orange, not red.  _Oh, frag me,_ Crosshairs thought as he realized exactly what he was seeing in the same instant that he heard the distinctive  _whoosh_  of a missile.

"INCOMING! Alias, take evasive action, you're targeted!" he shouted through the com link, whipping out his gun and scanning the sky until he found the missile. She obeyed immediately, banking sharp left and throwing her engines into overdrive as Skyfire broke the other way. She wouldn't throw off the rocket, not with that laser guidance, but maybe she could at least give him enough time to shoot it down. "Alias, bring it toward me! The rest of you, spread out and find out where that came from!"

She veered back toward Crosshairs in an impossibly tight curve, and for a moment she flew straight at the missile. She kicked her wing up at the last instant so that it passed less than a meter under her. The missile wasn't nearly as maneuverable as Alias' jet and Crosshairs lined up his shot in the seconds it took to curve around back at her. She slammed into high speed, but fast as she was, it was faster, and it was already gaining on her at an alarming rate. But if she spun or dove, he'd miss. "Fly straight at me!" Crosshairs yelled at her as he fired, praying both that she could resist the instinct to dodge and that his desperate shot would hit its target in time.

She passed right overhead as his shot found the missile. The explosion was close enough to engulf her, a huge concussive blast that knocked her right out of her alt-mode. Alias plunged out of the fireball with a scream.

Skyfire shot back toward her. "Transform!" he ordered as she tumbled toward the Earth. "Alias, shift back in your jet mode!"

"I'm trying!" she cried, but nothing was happening. She finally managed to flare her wings out and yelled with pain as they caught the air and slowed her descent, but while she'd had some success in using them to glide, they were never meant for actual flight. Not only that, one of them was smoking and seemed frozen in an awkward position and the engine on that side wasn't working at all. She was trying, but she couldn't stabilize herself with only one working wing and engine, and she started to spin out of control in the air.

Crosshairs kept his head on a swivel, making sure that no other missiles were incoming. "Scouts, come in! Where the hell did that come from?"

Optimus came on the com link at that moment. "Crosshairs, report! Did I just hear an explosion?"

"Not  _now_ , Prime, just get out here!" Crosshairs responded impatiently, then switched channels as Drift buzzed him. "Do you have them, Drift?"

Drift's answer was instant. "Combatants located and neutralized. Situation secured." Bumblebee and Hoist zoomed to his coordinates to back him up without having to be told.

But Crosshairs couldn't breathe a sigh of relief yet because Alias was still plummeting toward the ground. Skyfire had reached her now and dove to get beneath her, matching his speed to her rate of fall. "Grab on!" he commanded.

Alias crashed onto Skyfire's back at about five hundred feet and slipped sideways but managed to hold on. The impact sent Skyfire spinning a little, but he'd had centuries of flight experience and he leveled out at about a hundred feet up. He circled back toward Crosshairs and transformed just above the ground, catching Alias in his arms and landing cleanly on his feet.

All told, the whole thing had taken less than a minute.

"What the hell just happened?" Alias gasped as Skyfire carefully put her down, and then she fell to one knee and clutched her lacerated right arm. Her right wing was half-crumpled and the engine beneath it smoked alarmingly. "Damn it,  _ow!_ "

Crosshairs swore and rushed over to the pair. "Are you all right, Alias?"

She grimaced, trying to fold her wings back around her into the coat. Her left went without issue, but she had to reach back and drag her right one down. It made a sound no machinery ever should but finally settled back into place. "God, that really  _freaking_  hurts," she groaned. She cradled her arm to her chest, jaw clenched. "Are we under attack? Is it the Decepticons?"

"I don't know," Crosshairs said, kneeling down beside her. "But whoever it was, Drift said he captured them."

The others came over the hill just then. Hoist had transformed into his tow-truck mode and carried four humans on his flatbed. Bee and Drift flanked him, weapons trained on the humans. Crosshairs' eyes widened as he saw just who they'd captured. " _Lennox?_ " he said in disbelief, leaping up and striding over as the humans jumped down and Hoist transformed. "What the hell–explain yourself!"

Alias stared at them. "You've got to be freaking kidding me.  _Prime's humans_  shot me down?"

Lennox returned the look, seeming just as stunned to see her as she was to see him. "Wait, is that a girl?" he said, wide-eyed. "They have  _girl_  Autobots?"

"It looks like they do now," Epps replied, every bit as shocked as his commander.

Skyfire helped Alias up, but as soon as she was on her feet, she stalked toward the four humans. "Yes, I'm an Autobot!" she snapped furiously. "You didn't think to check before you decided to start shooting?"

"We were trying to help Skyfire!" Lennox protested.

"We saw an unknown alien fighter shooting at one of our allies," Epps said, holding up his hands. "What we were supposed to think?"

"You were supposed to think,  _gee, none of the other Autobots seem worried so let's find out what's going on,_ not  _let's shoot first and ask questions later!_ " Crosshairs said. He holstered his gun and pointed a finger at Lennox. "You don't have any idea how lucky you are that I shot that thing down."

"Seriously, you have no clue," Hoist agreed.

"Maybe I don't know who you are, should I come step on you?" Alias asked, and Bee quickly stepped between her and the NEST team, holding up his hands.

" _Easy, easy there,_ " he said, but Alias was in no mood to take it easy.

Lennox ran a hand over his face and sighed, then looked at Alias. "We really were just trying to help–and let's face it, you do look like a Decepticon. I mean, your alt-mode is a creepy black jet! That just screams Decepticon."

She glared at him over Bee's head. "Not making it better," she snapped. She pointed at the bright red symbol on her left shoulder, now a little scorched, then turned to show him the larger Autobot symbol on the canopy on her back. "I have  _two_ Autobot symbols! I'm labeled on  _both freaking sides!_  I mean, how much more obvious can I make it?"

"Maybe not shooting Skyfire would help?" Lennox said defensively.

"It was clearly a training exercise!" Skyfire held out his arms. "Do I look injured to you?"

Optimus came speeding out of the base then with Ironhide and Smokescreen on his bumper. All three transformed into a run, weapons at the ready. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, catching sight of Lennox and his team being held at gunpoint by Drift and Hoist while Alias, Crosshairs, and Skyfire yelled at them and Bumblebee stood between the two groups with his arms out. "What's going on here?"

Alias turned and stalked past him toward the entrance to the base. "You used to have much better taste in humans, Optimus," she snarled as Ironhide and Smokescreen jumped out of her way.

Optimus turned to watch her stride down the hill. "Where are you going?"

"Somewhere they're not!" she shouted over her shoulder, and vanished into Metroplex.

Prime stared after her for a moment, then looked over at Crosshairs. "What in the Allspark just happened out here?"

"A slight weapons malfunction," Crosshairs said, giving Lennox a pointed look. When Optimus straightened angrily, he held up a hand. "Don't worry, she's fine. Justifiably pissed off, but fine."

Prime's scowl deepened. "What exactly do you mean by  _weapons malfunction_?" he growled.

"We need get our helicopter back," Epps said, breezing past Prime's question. "We got out kind of fast after the misfire and it's not properly secured. I don't want to just leave it out there."

Lennox glanced at Optimus, but when he didn't object, he nodded. "Bring it in," he ordered, and Bee transformed so Epps could get in and ride back to the helicopter. "The rest of us should probably get started on why we're actually here. Optimus, you remember Drs. Ishihara and Andronov," he said, indicating the pair behind him. Prime barely glanced at them and Lennox gestured toward the base. "Should we go meet the scientist we'll be working with and start making plans to get him what he needs?"

Optimus gave Lennox a look that clearly said he wasn't going to be distracted by this quick change of subject. "You just met her," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and watching their reactions. "Is that a problem?" he asked when Lennox closed his eyes and groaned.

"No, no, of course not," Lennox said quickly. He cleared his throat and smiled. "No problem at all."


	28. You're Finally Learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could be triggering for people with PTSD.

Alias had started trembling by the time she reached Wheeljack's lab. Her anger was wearing off and her wounds were really beginning to throb now. The sharp, insistent pain of these fresh lacerations was bringing back a lot of seriously bad memories in a way that the dull ache of her old bruises didn't. She felt edgy and like everything was slightly too bright and too loud. Holding onto her composure as hard as she could, she walked into Wheeljack's lab and called, "Is Ratchet still in here?"

"Yes, but I was just about to–whoa, what happened to you?" the medical officer said the instant he caught sight of her, tossing his handheld to Wheeljack and hurrying around the table.

"In a nutshell, Prime's guests thought I was really attacking Skyfire and decided to return the favor," Alias said sourly.

"Well, that explains the readings we were seeing here," Ratchet said, reaching her side. His worried expression made it clear that he had noticed how hard she was shaking. "You had a pretty big adrenaline surge and your pain receptors all lit up. We thought maybe you crashed."

"Nearly, but no," Alias replied.

"Vector Sigma, look what they  _did_  to you," Wheeljack fumed, coming over and shaking his head at the scorched and broken segments of her armored jacket as Ratchet took her uninjured arm to guide her over to the table. "Prime's gonna kick their asses–and I'll help!"

"Not if I get there first," she growled.

"Before anyone kicks anyone's ass, how about you let me have a look at you," Ratchet said in a soothing voice. He and Wheeljack helped her up onto the table. "How badly are you damaged?"

Alias perched on the end of the table, wincing with every movement. "I think it's not too bad. I don't seem to be losing much Energon, but I can't transform," she replied, trying to keep her voice steady. It wasn't a very successful effort. She gasped and grabbed the edge of the table tight as Ratchet took hold of her wrist and stretched her wounded arm out to evaluate the damage there. She kept talking, trying to focus on the present and not the memories of the last time she'd experienced pain this intense. "It could've been a lot worse. Crosshairs shot the missile down before it could shoot  _me_ down. I just got hit by some shrapnel and the shockwave from the explosion, and Skyfire caught me on the way down so I didn't actually crash."

Wheeljack stared at her. "None of that sounds like my definition of _not too bad_."

"It's all right, it's nothing we can't fix," Ratchet said reassuringly as he finished examining her arm. He bent down to gently spread the damaged area of her coat over the table and it was all she could do to hold in a whimper. She'd helped Ratchet treat Optimus and Ironhide and countless others after battles and they'd never shown much discomfort from their wounds, so Alias was more than a little surprised at how much pain she was in now–not to mention how incredibly odd it felt to have her  _coat_ hurt. She clenched her jaw and tried to be as stoic as Optimus always was.

Ratchet finally finished his exam. "Well, there's a lot of broken metal jammed in here and in your arm. It doesn't look like it's yours–this area must've taken the brunt of the shrapnel." He exchanged a dark look with Wheeljack. "You know what this was as well as I do."

Wheeljack nodded, scowling. "Yeah, and I'm  _really_  interested in why they felt the need to load out with those for this visit."

"What?" Alias asked, focusing on their anger to distract herself.

"They call it an AT-AMRAAM. They make the damn things special for human/robot warfare," Wheeljack said angrily. "Big explosions, lots of shrapnel. They're designed specifically for knocking us out of our alt-modes and disabling our ability to transform, but without fatally damaging us. They're for capture, not killing."

Ratchet shook his head and when he spoke again, he was clearly trying to calm everyone down. "I know Prime will find out about it. In the meantime, I can clean all of the shrapnel out and that should give you back pretty close to your full range of motion, but full repairs will have to wait until you're ready to shut down for the night."

"Why?" she asked, frowning a little. She wanted these wounds  _gone._  "As far as I know, Optimus isn't aware of exactly what happened out there, and I'd like to keep it that way. I keep having problems when I'm linked into Alias. You know how close he came to shutting Alias down after the self-destruct thing–I don't want to tempt him to reconsider because of this."

Ratchet shook his head. "I'm sorry, but this isn't up for debate. The shrapnel tore a lot of connections apart and I'll need to weld those. Welding hurts. I don't do that to patients who are conscious." Then he paused, looking at her steadily. "And I don't think trying to fool Prime is a good idea anyway. There's not much that goes on around here that he doesn't know about. This wasn't your fault so I don't see how he could hold it against you, but lying to him… that's a different story."

Alias sighed. "You're right," she said reluctantly. "As always. Just do whatever you can to make it hurt less, okay?"

"Now that, I have no problem with," Ratchet agreed. "Try to relax and I'll get started."

She watched him pick up a pair of long-handled pliers and take hold of her arm again as Wheeljack leaned over her to hold the light. Alias tensed in expectation, and that anticipation made the agony she was already feeling seem that much worse. Abruptly everything began to intensify–the anxiety, the pain sizzling along her nerves, the way Ratchet pinned her hand against the table to stabilize her arm and how they were both looming over her, the memories she was trying so hard to repress, and most of all watching those pliers coming closer and knowing it was going to hurt when they touched her–

Light glinted off the twin tips of the pliers like a spark and that was it. Panic swallowed her whole. "Nonono, stop, don't!" she screamed. An alarm started beeping behind her as she jerked back hard enough to make Ratchet stumble against the table, then gave a little cry when her body's instinctive attempt to enter battle-mode locked her broken armor with an agonizing metallic groan. Wheeljack reached for her and she kicked at him, just missing when he ducked. "Don't touch me,  _don't touch me!_ "

Ratchet held up his hands, stunned. "Hey, hey, calm down, it's all right–"

"No, it's not all right!" she yelled, wanting to run away from them but afraid that her malfunctioning body armor would trip her up if she tried. She pulled her knees up to her chest and pressed her head against them instead, curling into a protective ball. The armored plates of her jacket were still straining painfully, trying to move in ways they couldn't right now, but she couldn't calm down enough to dismiss the instinctive call to battle-mode. Her armor grated across the jagged shrapnel embedded in her wounds and she choked back another cry. If they would just  _get back,_  maybe she could make it stop, but they were right in her face– "It's not all right, stay away from me!"

"No one's going to hurt you here," Wheeljack said, clearly worried. "Take it easy."

He reached out again and she flung out a hand, meaning to wave him off, but when he and Ratchet both ducked and jumped back, she realized that her sword was out instead. She wrapped both arms over her head, pressing down hard despite the pain it caused. It was stupid to be afraid of them–these were her  _friends_ , Ratchet wasn't going to torture her, it was completely ridiculous to even consider it. Still, no matter how many times she repeated that to herself, she couldn't stop shaking. Imagining them staring at her didn't help. She desperately tried to calm down but all she could see was that taser-wand coming at her, electricity sparking from the tip in a bright promise of torment, and Starscream smiling in anticipation of her screams.

She redoubled her efforts to push the flashback of the taser away but Ratchet was  _still holding it_ –no, he wasn't holding a taser, she reminded herself desperately, it just looked like one. She cast around for anything to displace the memories. The beeping alarm was a sound that hadn't been in that room where she'd been tortured and she focused on it with all her might.

But then she heard one of them take a hesitant step closer and imagined Ratchet bringing that thing back toward her. Any progress she'd made toward calming down evaporated. "Stay away from me!" she cried. She tried to speak more calmly, to strip the fear from her voice. "Just–just back off for a minute, okay?"

"Alias, look around you. See where you are," Ratchet said softly, and hearing her Autobot name was startling enough to momentarily interrupt her spiraling thoughts. "No one's going to hurt you here."

"Optimus Prime, report to the lab on the double," Wheeljack murmured into the radio as Ratchet spoke, and she protested, "Don't!" immediately but it was too late.

Alias groaned, rocking back and forth. As bad as it was for Ratchet and Wheeljack to watch her act like an idiot, now they'd pulled Optimus away from his work just because she was freaking out. "God, I wish you hadn't done that," she said, curling in harder but finally managing to retract her sword so she could lock her hands over the back of her head instead. She wished she could just vanish. "Optimus has more important things to do than come running every time I start acting like–"

"Like someone who's been through an enormous trauma?" Ratchet interrupted gently. "I'm pretty sure Optimus would tell you he doesn't have anything more important to do than be here for you when you need him."

"Alias, I promise you, he doesn't mind being interrupted for you. If you had any idea of how many times he's told us to let him know if you need  _anything,_  you wouldn't doubt that for an instant," Wheeljack backed him up. "He  _wants_ to be called."

The door opened a moment later and she heard Optimus hurry in, but she didn't look up. "I'm fine, Optimus," she said before he could say a word, but her voice was unsteady, too loud, and she was sure she wasn't fooling him at all. She kept trying as though convincing him that she was all right would make it true. "I'm being stupid. You don't have to–"

"You're not starting in on that nonsense again, are you? The only stupid thing here is the idea that I'd leave you like this," Optimus interrupted, but his voice was gentle. "I swear to Primus, woman, you are frustratingly stubborn sometimes." She actually huffed a little laugh at his complaint and he sat down behind her, not touching her, just nearby. When she didn't protest that, he lightly rested his hand on her good shoulder–not holding her, not restraining her in any way, just offering his strength and the reassurance that she wasn't alone.

Ratchet stepped forward and she heard him start to speak, but Optimus cut him off. "Not now. Back up, both of you, and  _put that damn thing away_ ," he said sharply, and the medic closed his mouth with an audible snap. An instant later, both of them had retreated to the far side of the lab. Alias squeezed her eyes closed in relief that Optimus had accomplished what she hadn't been able to. She was sure they'd had the best of intentions, but having those two hovering had only been making things worse.

To her further relief, Optimus didn't say anything else after that. She focused on the sound of that alarm again, and the gentle weight of his hand, and the silent assurance that nothing– _nothing–_ would touch her while he was here. As much as she wanted to fight her own battles, there was something enormously reassuring about knowing that his only focus right now was to keep her safe. Only when she had calmed enough to stop rocking did he finally speak in the softest of tones. "What happened, Anna? And I don't mean the humans shooting you. What happened right now?"

She leaned toward him and didn't allow herself to question the relief she felt when Optimus immediately moved forward so that her back touched his shoulder. No one seemed to be judging her for needing his comfort right now. Maybe it was all right let a little weakness show.

And Optimus was being perfect, letting her decide how much contact she could handle and not pressuring her to reply even when almost a full minute passed after his question. "Just… this hurts," she finally whispered as her armor at last stopped straining and the partial battle-mode receded. The beeping slowed. "And… it's just putting me in a bad head-space, that's all."

"Of course it is," Optimus replied, tracing a soothing circle on her shoulder with his thumb. "Tell us what you need."

She unlocked her hands behind her head and stretched her fingers toward him instead. Optimus took her hand and she held it tight in both of hers at the nape of her neck. She sighed silently, relaxing a tiny bit more, but she kept her face hidden against her knees. "Not hurting would help, but Ratchet needs me to shut down for the repairs and I don't think I could handle that right now," she admitted. "Not being able to be able see what's coming… would be bad."

"Then we'll find a way to do it without you having to shut down," Ratchet replied, and the way he didn't even question it or act offended that she felt the need to keep an eye on him made her feel a little better, too.

"How about if I rig a partial disconnect?" Wheeljack suggested, and that was unexpected enough that Alias finally raised her head. He gestured to her wounds as she lowered her arms from their protective position. Optimus shifted a bit closer as the engineer explained. "Think of it like a local anesthetic instead of a general, in human terms. Instead of knocking you out completely, I can disconnect the pain and proprioceptive sensors to the injured areas. It'll just take a minute. You won't have to shut down, Ratchet can do what he needs to do, and you shouldn't feel a thing."

It sounded like absolutely the perfect solution. "Can you really do that?" she asked hopefully.

"I built you, Alias. I can do that," Wheeljack confirmed. The engineer went over to his cabinet and pulled out a few tools, then brought them back and showed them to her. "Are any of these going to be a problem?" She immediately started to shake her head, but he held up a hand. "No, you didn't even look. I'd rather hear about any problems now than be dodging that sword again later."

Alias sighed, her embarrassment coming back because they were having to tiptoe around her like this, but she took a moment and really looked at the tools the engineer was holding. None of them were electric or even slightly resembled the taser-wand Starscream had used to torture her. "Those are fine," she said at last.

"Good. This shouldn't hurt at all, but is there anything I should make sure not to do?" Wheeljack asked, but despite knowing that he was only asking because he genuinely wanted to take good care of her, the idea of having to put the things she most feared into words froze Alias up again.

Optimus shifted on the table so that he was facing her, his legs stretched out the opposite direction from hers, with her uninjured side closest to him. He carefully brought her wounded arm down and rested it atop her knee, then turned his hand so that hers was on top, letting her hold him and not the other way around. "Don't lean over her," he told Wheeljack when it became clear that she was unable to answer his question. "Don't restrain her in any way. Do nothing that would make her feel trapped, and don't surprise her."

Wheeljack instantly moved so that he stood beside her instead of in front of her. "Good to know. I won't."

Alias glanced up at Optimus as Wheeljack started to unfasten one of the armor plates over her shoulder, grateful that he'd answered when she couldn't, but Optimus spoke before she could say a word. "If you're about to tell me to go, save your breath."

She shook her head, smiling a little. "Believe it or not, I was actually going to thank you and ask you to stay," she said softly.

"Good. You're finally learning," Optimus replied with satisfaction. Then he briefly touched his forehead to hers. "And there's nowhere else I'd be right now."


	29. An Autobot Rite of Passage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn't put this at the start of the last chapter too-edited it in now-but this could continue to be somewhat triggery for those with PTSD because Alias is still going through her flashback/panic attack. If you're okay with that, read on!

Alias only kept her eyes closed for a moment, though. She turned to watch as Wheeljack removed her shoulder plate and started to work on the circuitry beneath, telling her every step before he did it. It didn't take him long to expose the wiring leading to her arm sensors, and although she tensed when he disconnected them, true to his promise, nothing he did hurt. The pain from her wounded arm instantly vanished.

Wheeljack set his tools aside. "All right, that's your arm done, but you'll still be able to move it normally. Try it," he said, and Alias did so. It felt a little strange to see her arm move without feeling anything, but knowing that he hadn't done anything to impede her freedom was comforting. Wheeljack wasn't done, though. "The other sensors connect in three places back here," he told her, touching three spots beside her spine. "I know you won't be able to see me, but I'll be doing exactly the same thing you just watched me do. Are you good with that?"

Alias hadn't thought of that. The truth was that she really wasn't good with anyone standing behind her–in all the time she'd been held, Megatron's voice had always come from behind her and he had never once stepped into view. Trying not to think about that, she looked down at her now-numb arm instead–she couldn't feel Optimus' fingers around hers anymore, so she let go and took his hand with her other one instead. They were still waiting for an answer, though. Wheeljack was one of her closest friends–she didn't want to tell him she didn't trust him, but she couldn't honestly say that she was fine with this, either. Shivering again, she drew her knees in tighter as her thoughts stuttered to a stop.

"Alias. Hey. Look at me," Optimus murmured as the silence stretched out. Alias closed her eyes for a moment, but only for an instant–darkness was worse. Finally she looked up at Optimus, but to her surprise, he wasn't looking at her. Instead of meeting her gaze, Optimus was watching Wheeljack's every move as though understanding that if she couldn't see what he was doing for herself, she needed someone she trusted to watch for her.

And there was no one in the galaxy she trusted more than Optimus.

Finally she nodded. "Do it," she whispered, staring unblinkingly at Optimus. "But don't talk."

Wheeljack nodded silently and stepped behind her. She could tell that he was working faster now, probably both because he wasn't narrating every move he made and also because he didn't want to prolong her discomfort. It only took him a few minutes to disconnect the sensors leading to her lacerated coat armor, and he stepped back into her line of sight the instant he was done. Alias felt weak from the immediate surge of relief at the cessation of that agony. She finally relaxed entirely from her curled-up position and turned a little to lean fully against Optimus, putting her arm around his waist and her head on his shoulder. "Oh God, that's so much better," she sighed, shuddering. "Thank you, Wheeljack."

"My pleasure," Wheeljack replied, gathering up his tools and setting them aside. "Over to you, Ratchet."

The medic didn't immediately get out his medical instruments again, though. "There won't be any pain, but you're likely to feel some tugging as I pull the shrapnel out," Ratchet warned her. "And I'm going to need to use the same thing I had earlier, and stand behind you, too. Are you certain you don't want to wait?"

"I'll be fine," she assured him, but she tucked her head more firmly against Prime's shoulder and closed her eyes. This time, darkness was preferable to seeing Ratchet coming at her with those pliers again–even knowing that it wasn't a taser, they'd used the same kind of thing to tear her fingernails out. She was pretty sure she could deal with knowing it was there so long as she reminded herself that Ratchet was the one using it, but no way in hell was she going to look at the thing. "Let's get it over with, but I'm not going to watch," she said, curling her fingers in tight.

Optimus put his arm around her and gently rested his other hand on her cheek. "I'll keep watch for you," he promised, and she nodded and squeezed his waist in gratitude as he murmured to Ratchet, "Work fast."

"Understood," Ratchet replied quietly.

"I hear you were winning that little mock-battle with Skyfire," Optimus said as Ratchet started working on her arm.

Alias started to call him out for trying to distract her, but decided against it. She could use all the distracting she could get right now. Just knowing that Ratchet was holding those pliers… she wrenched her mind back to the flight training. "If anyone said that, they're giving me far too much credit. I'm faster but Skyfire's a whole lot better. It was fun, though."

"And I think you aren't giving yourself enough credit," Optimus replied, and she heard the smile in his voice. "I managed to find a few minutes to come out and watch, you know. For someone who wasn't made to fly, you do so with incredible grace. No one who saw you out there today would ever think that was your first attempt at it. You've truly got a knack for it. Give it a few more lessons and no one will be able to touch you in the air."

She smiled, warmed both by his praise and that he'd made time to see her when she knew how much work he'd had to catch up on. "You know what I'm looking forward to now? Taking shooting lessons from Crosshairs. I didn't think anyone could shoot down a freaking missile."

Optimus hummed in agreement. "He has always had spectacular aim. He may have earned a little extra goodwill from me with that particular shot, though."

"Oh, just a little, huh," she said dryly, and he chuckled.

"Maybe more than a little," he corrected himself.

"Yeah, you better say that. So what are your humans doing while you're in here?"

"You know, they aren't my humans. You're the only human I claim," he told her, and she laughed. "But to answer your question, they're in the common room with Crosshairs, Bee, Smokescreen, and Ironhide, with orders to stay put until I decide what to do with them."

Alias pressed against him, hearing the anger in his voice that he couldn't fully disguise. "So are the guards to keep them from leaving or to keep me from stomping them?"

Optimus growled. "Definitely the first one. Right now, I don't think any Autobot on this base would blame you for giving them the Starscream treatment. I'm more than a little tempted to do it myself."

Alias smiled–the thought of violence shouldn't be charming, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't like his willingness to kick some ass on her behalf. But her smile faded as she remembered something else. "Do I really look like a Decepticon, Optimus?"

"What?" Optimus cupped her chin and urged her to raise her head, and she finally opened her eyes to see him frowning, all amusement gone. "Who told you that?"

"Who do you think? There was a reason they shot me, you know." Alias tried to make it a joke, but it fell flat.

"I had assumed it was because of the aerial combat drill."

She started to shrug, but remembered that she was supposed to be holding still in time to stop herself. "I'm pretty sure that being a creepy black jet had something to do with it, too."

Alias saw the banked anger in his eyes. "No, Alias, you do not look like a Decepticon," Optimus said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Not in your robot form, not in your alt-mode, not in any way whatsoever. Do you hear me? You look nothing like a Decepticon."

Her gaze slid down to the vivid red and blue flames she'd so recently traced on his chest. "I think maybe I do," she replied doubtfully. "I mean, look at the rest of you–Autobots are colorful. I'm dark."

"And why exactly does it even matter?" Optimus lifted her chin until she met his eyes again. "Don't you remember our reactions the first time you transformed into your jet mode? Every single one of us were speechless. Do you really think any of us would've been half so impressed if you looked like our greatest enemy?"

"Those humans are stupid," Wheeljack said, and she glanced over to see him looking downright furious at the insult to his design. "We built you a beautiful proto-form and you only made it better when you chose that gorgeous alt-mode. Your jet isn't creepy, Alias, it's badass. Trust me, you look killer in every single sense of the word."

"The Decepticons wish they looked half as good as you," Ratchet chimed in, and even though his voice came from behind her, his anger on her behalf was comforting.

Alias ducked her head, embarrassed. "I swear I wasn't fishing for compliments," she replied, glad that robots couldn't blush. "I just wondered if I should maybe add some color or something. You know, to fit in more."

"Don't change a single thing about yourself to fit in. If you want to be neon orange or black as the inside of a drive-shaft, all that matters is that you are happy with it. You're an Autobot here," Optimus said firmly, tapping her chest over her spark. "Who cares what color you are?"

Alias finally nodded and rested her forehead against the curve of his shoulder again. "Thanks, guys. Honestly, I thought the monochrome thing kind of worked."

"Oh, it most definitely works. You look completely unique and dangerous and graceful and striking exactly as you are. The combination is incredibly compelling," Optimus said, and she heard the smile in his voice now. "And those wings? They're amazing. I've never seen anything like them."

Wheeljack snickered. "Why don't you just admit that you like having a hot girlfriend, Prime?"

"Isn't that what I just said?" Optimus replied, completely seriously.

She laughed, truly feeling better now. "And to think, just a few days ago you wanted me to be inconspicuous."

"I told you, I learned my lesson."

Ratchet dropped another piece of shrapnel onto the tray and moved in front of her again. "That looks like all of it," he said, handing the pliers to Wheeljack who immediately put them out of sight. "And getting all that out should take care of most of the pain. Do you want me to do the remainder of the repairs now or wait until you shut down for the night?"

"Let's wait," Alias replied. Despite Prime's efforts to distract her, she needed a break. Even if they weren't physically restraining her, having to hold completely still after that kind of panic attack was exhausting. She wanted to move, to run, to fly–anything that reinforced that she was free again. "If I'm functional and the pain is down to a dull roar, that'll be good enough for me. You can do the rest when we don't have people waiting."

"You're the boss," Ratchet agreed easily. "Once Wheeljack reverses the blocks, let's just make sure you can transform again and then you'll be done here."

Wheeljack quickly reconnected her sensors. "Okay, give it a try whenever you're ready."

Alias scooted to the edge of the table and stood up. The damaged areas hurt again, but nothing like they had when the shrapnel was still in place, and more importantly, she had been expecting it this time. She flexed her arm, exploring her range of motion, and then moved away from the tables into the largest clear area before unfolding her wings.

Her right side didn't expand as quickly as the left, but it did fully extend this time, even if doing so made it ache. She stretched it this way and that, finding the limits of its movement just as she had with her arm. "How is it?" Ratchet asked, studying her wing with a clinical eye.

"Much better," she replied, trying some of the smaller movements that she'd learned during that morning's flight as she'd tried to figure out how to glide. "Still pretty stiff, but it's not locking up anymore."

"Those torn connections aren't fixed," he reminded her. "I wouldn't recommend trying any of the aerial tricks you were doing earlier until I'm able to completely repair you. It's certainly not going to respond the way you're used to and it might not even hold against the strain."

Alias nodded, folding her wings back down into the coat. They both collapsed easily and settled into place. She called up her battle-mode and, as expected, the right side responded more slowly, but her armor did respond this time. Ratchet bent down a little to examine the way her coat plates moved and nodded, satisfied. "That seems to work well enough," he said. "Now try a full transformation."

She unfurled her wings again, but when she tried to bring them down to shift into the wings of her jet, a jolt of pain shot through her right side that was strong enough to send her to her hands and knees with a cry. "Okay, that doesn't work," she gasped, abandoning the effort immediately. Optimus was beside her in seconds and she tried to smile at him. "Don't worry, I'm not going to freak out on you again."

He put his arm around her. "Yes, because that's the only reason I would care about seeing you collapse," he said, giving her a very pointed look. He helped her up and didn't let her go. "Bad?"

"It's been better, honestly. I think flying's out right now," she replied, leaning on him as the pain started to fade. After a moment, though, she was able to straighten up again. "But I don't need to fly to deal with the NEST team."

Wheeljack nodded, but Ratchet was looking at his handheld with a concerned expression. "I'm not entirely happy with your vitals right now. Your blood pressure is still dangerously high."

Optimus frowned. "Do we need to shut down?"

Ratchet hesitated for a moment, but to Alias' relief, he finally shook his head. "I'm not sure that shutting down right now would be the right way to help, Prime. In fact, that might actually make it worse." He looked at Alias. "Still, are you certain I can't convince you to wait to talk to them? You don't need any new stress right now, and they did just shoot you."

"Absolutely certain," Alias replied. "I won't let them stress me out, I promise. In fact, I'm about to make them give me everything I need to continue my pet project. Nothing could make me feel better than that."

"Does any of this change your earlier directions about an emergency shut-down?" Optimus asked, clearly not fully reassured.

Ratchet thought for a moment before shaking his head again. "No, although I think it won't be likely at this point that it'll be needed. The link has held absolutely stable through everything she's had thrown at her so far. If it was going to go bad, I would've expected it to happen during the moments of highest stress." He looked at her very seriously. "Still, don't hesitate to tell us if something does start to feel wrong."

"I'll let you know," Alias promised.

"Then as far as I'm concerned, you're free to go, but I want you to remember that what you do as Alias still affects you as Anna. I want that blood pressure to come down."

Alias glanced over at the link machine–it was still pretty odd to see her body lying there so completely still–and then nodded to the medic. "I'll think calm thoughts. Thank you both." She bit her lip. "And… I'm sorry, about earlier. The sword–I wasn't thinking."

Ratchet smiled at her and waved that away. "Pulling a weapon on the medic is practically an Autobot rite of passage. Just save your hugs for Optimus and we'll call it even."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... is it wrong that I love imagining that Ratchet is completely freaked out by affection? LMAO!


	30. Get Back Up

Optimus took her hand and led her out of the lab and toward the common room. "You're sure you're all right?" he asked once they rounded the corner into an empty hall, unable to help himself. Walking into the lab and seeing Alias curled into that tight, terrified ball had been entirely too reminiscent of the aftermath of her attack on Starscream. Even though he'd researched post-traumatic stress and knew that these flashbacks and panic attacks were to be expected, Optimus still hated seeing her suffer so much.

Alias sighed, her steps slowing. "Not yet, but I'm working on it." Then she stopped walking entirely, but instead of looking at him, she stared down at the floor. "Optimus, thank you for putting up with me through all of this, and don't try to tell me it's nothing. Talking me down can't be any fun for you, and you… well, you've not only gotten very good at it, you haven't shown any sign of running away. I want you to know that I don't take it for granted."

It was the first time she'd ever admitted that she remembered him comforting her after her nightmares. Optimus drew her into his arms and pulled her close, sensing that she was calm enough now to handle it. She leaned into his embrace, her arms going around him in return. "I wish you would take it for granted," Optimus said softly. "You would do the same for me if I needed it and I doubt you'd run away either."

She nodded against his chest. "You're right. You're stuck with me, no matter what. I'm never leaving."

"Good. I'll hold you to that," he said firmly. Then he cupped her chin in one hand and urged her to meet his gaze. "Now I need you to believe that I'm not leaving, either. Even when it's hard, I'm not going anywhere. I won't try to convince you that seeing you go through that makes me happy, but I wouldn't be anywhere else when you need me, and knowing that I can help you get through it  _does_ make me happy. I don't like it when you apologize for things you can't control or that you think that anything I could be doing is more important than you. If you want to work on anything, work on that. All right?"

Alias looked at him for a long moment, searching his face, before finally nodding again. "I will," she whispered.

"Good," Optimus said again, but gently this time. He rested his forehead against hers–something about the closeness of the gesture soothed him and it had become one of his favorite ways to hold her when she was Alias. Honestly, right now he needed this as much as she did. "You do know that you don't have to talk to Lennox's team right now if you don't want to, yes? They'll keep. You don't have to prove anything to anyone."

"I want to," she told him quietly. "I meant what I told Ratchet. The sooner that I know I can start working again, the better. I think it'll help to have something normal again." Optimus sighed, wishing she'd take a break, but he nodded anyway, trusting her to know what was best for her state of mind. He just held her close, wanting to delay the moment when he'd have to release her as long as possible. "What do they know about me?" she asked after a few minutes, not pulling away.

He didn't, either. "Very little," he replied. "They have only been told that you're a new arrival, a scientist who specializes in Energon. Anything beyond that is up to you."

"And that I'm a  _girl Autobot,_ " she said derisively. "They were very shocked about that."

She sounded so offended that Optimus chuckled. "Well, females of our kind are a rarity, you know. You are the first any of them have ever seen."

"Female, yes, but girl?  _Girl?_  I'm ten times his size and he seriously calls me a  _girl_?" He laughed again and she finally drew back a little, and he was relieved to see her smiling. "If they were surprised that there are female Autobots, wait until they find out that there are  _feminist_  ones."

"I could almost feel sorry for Lennox, but he did shoot you. He deserves everything he gets," Optimus said, and this time she laughed. He released her and took her hand instead. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

But Alias didn't move. "Wait. There's one more thing we need to discuss before we go," she said, pulling him back. Optimus raised an eyebrow at the little smile she wore now. That expression… he had no clue what she was thinking, but she looked amused in a way that slightly alarmed him. "So you think I'm pretty, huh?"

Optimus frowned, surprised that she felt the need to ask. "Have I not told you that before now?" he asked, and she shook her head.

"And you haven't yet, as far as I can tell." She stepped closer and put her hand on his chest. "I'm waiting," she teased, tracing the flames again.

Optimus groaned. "Putting such things into words does not come naturally to me," he hedged, but she wasn't letting him off that easy.

"And yet I've learned how to change shape and fly. Come on, it's not so hard. You can do it. Here, I'll even help." She reached up and put a fingertip on his chin, moving his mouth. "I think you're pretty, Alias."

Optimus laughed and shook off her hand. He was a bit embarrassed, but that smile on her face made it worthwhile, and at least no one else was around to hear him. "All right, all right, you win," he said, making a show of rolling his eyes. She responded with an exaggerated pose of rapt attention and he laughed again, then cupped her face in his hands. "But I would never tell you that you're pretty, Alias."

She gave him a distinctly unimpressed look. "If I learned to fly, you just crashed."

"No, wait, let me finish," he said, and she raised an eyebrow, waiting. "When I first saw what the science team had built, I recognized the artistry of their design, but I didn't think it was pretty. It had no spark, no soul–it was just a well-made shell. But then you gave this body life and as soon as you did, everything changed." She wasn't glaring anymore and Optimus took that to mean he was on the right track. "The alt-form you chose, the way you incorporated it, those incredible wings… I was so speechless when you first transformed not because that jet is sleek or your coat is nice, but because suddenly I could see you inhabiting her–the way you move, your expressions, your essence. Alias, you are so amazing, so extraordinarily beautiful that I lack the words to express it, but I can tell you that pretty doesn't begin to cover it."

Alias stared up at him, eyes wide and lips parted in wonder. "Wow," she whispered. "Why do you think you're no good at this?"

He shrugged and released her face, taking both her hands instead. "I've never had reason to try before," he replied honestly, more than a little relieved. But if words could put that kind of look on her face, he might have found a reason to do so from now on.

She hugged him tight for a moment, then sighed. "You know something? We really need to learn to have conversations like this when people aren't waiting for us. That's twice just today."

He chuckled, stroking her back. Right now he could tell that her captivity and torture was the furthest thing from her mind. More than anything, that made him glad he'd forced himself to put his feelings for her into words. "We can always make them wait instead," he suggested, but he already knew she wasn't going to agree to that before she pulled back and shook her head.

"No. The sooner we deal with them," Alias said, reaching up and running a fingertip along the line of his jaw before stepping away, "the sooner I can steal you away for some positive reinforcement. You're going to find out that it's a good idea to give your woman compliments, big guy."

Optimus pulled her back against him. "Now I'm really going to make them wait," he said, but she just laughed and tugged him by the hand toward the common room again. He dragged his feet but she wasn't going to be put off, and finally he sighed and gave in. "Fine. But just so you know, what you just said is going to make it very difficult for me to pretend that you're just another Autobot in front of them."

"That's fair," Alias said, sending him a wink over her shoulder. "Because what you told me is going to make it nearly impossible for me to act like you're only my Prime."

Optimus had managed to replace his smile with a more appropriately serious expression by the time they reached the common room. He squeezed her hand, stopping outside the closed door. "You're completely positive that you want to do this now. There's no way I can talk you out of it?"

She squeezed back and then released his hand. "Have you ever heard the phrase  _get right back on the horse?_ " she asked, and Optimus shook his head. "Well, it comes from learning how to ride. If the horse throws you, you get right back on to prove to yourself and to the horse that you're not going to be beaten that easy. You get back on before you have a chance to become afraid of it." She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "I'm getting back on this horse, Optimus. I'm scared of enough things right now. They're not going to throw me again. This is a good thing, I promise."

Optimus searched her face for a moment, but he finally nodded. "Just remember that if you do get thrown, I'm here to catch you," he said, not to undermine her courage, but to remind her that she didn't need to be strong alone. Then he opened the door and entered a step ahead of her, just as he would have with any other Autobot.

Perceptor and Skyfire stood as they came in. The humans were sitting around the table with Smokescreen, Crosshairs, Bumblebee, and Ironhide not-quite-looming over them. No one spoke and the tension in the room was thick as soup. Ironhide in particular kept spinning up his cannons and deactivating them again and again, and the NEST team was keeping a very nervous eye on him. Optimus put a hand on his shoulder as he led Alias over to them and Ironhide stopped, but he gave the warrior the tiniest of nods to show his approval. He was definitely not the only one angry that she'd been shot–not to mention what they'd shot her  _with_. Optimus still intended to get to the bottom of that.

But all of that could wait. He was going to make this meeting as quick and low-stress for Alias as possible. He could delve into why Lennox felt the need to bring those AT missiles, and why he'd been so quick to fire one off, when she was elsewhere.

"At this point, introductions seem a little redundant," Prime said dryly as they stopped beside the table. "But this is Alias. She is the scientist I called you here to assist. Alias, Major Lennox and his team."

Lennox stood up. "Optimus, I really am sorry that we–" he began.

Alias interrupted with an exaggerated look of surprise. "Oh, did you shoot Optimus after I left?"

Lennox looked between them, clearly confused. "Um. No?"

"Then why are you apologizing to him?" she asked, the sweetness of her tone masking acid, and Optimus had to cover his mouth to hide a smile.

The only woman on the team didn't bother hiding hers. "I already like her," she announced. She stood and looked up at Alias. "I am Dr. Kaminari Ishihara, Alias. I work in cybernetics and engineering. It is an honor to meet you."

Alias nodded to acknowledge her. "I don't like any of you yet. Hope you'll understand."

Lennox recovered and gestured to the other two at the table, who stood. "This is Petr Andronov–he specializes in artificial intelligence," he said, and the largest man inclined his head to her. He looked like a human version of Ironhide, all muscles and brawn. Then Lennox indicated the final man. "And I think you remember Master Sergeant Epps, who was flying the helicopter a little while ago."

Alias raised an eyebrow at Epps, then looked pointedly down at the fresh, jagged wounds on her right arm and coat. "Not likely to forget you."

"Ma'am, I genuinely apologize for what happened," Epps said, putting his hand over his heart. "We were all relieved to hear that you weren't badly injured. Optimus usually notifies us of any new Autobot arrivals but we weren't made aware that you were here, or what your alt-mode is. Had we known about you, that would never have happened."

"Oh, now see, that was nice," Alias said, giving Lennox a look before inclining her head to Epps. "Don't do it again and I won't have any weapons malfunctions of my own. Deal?"

"Absolutely," Epps replied, looking greatly relieved.

Lennox looked up at Prime. "Incidentally, why  _weren't_  we informed of her arrival?"

Optimus crossed his arms. "Alias is an extremely high-value target. Her presence here is a secret of the highest order. Even our other base is not aware of exactly who she is," he replied, his tone very stern. He needed them to fully comprehend her importance–not just to him but to all of the Autobots. The possibility that she could truly solve their chronic Energon shortage gave her that status even if there had been nothing else between her and Optimus. "The Decepticons would love to have access to what she knows and they have already made several attempts to take her. She came to us for sanctuary and protection, and we have granted it."

Lennox winced. "And then we shot her," he groaned. He rubbed the back of his neck. "On a scale of one to ten, how bad did we just fuck up?"

It was clearly a rhetorical question but Ironhide growled an answer anyway. "Armageddon."

Optimus didn't contradict him. His deliberately calm tone didn't mean that he wasn't still extremely angry. "You have earned a certain amount of goodwill from us over the years," he told Lennox. "Understand that the only reason you are being given a chance to return to your prior good standing is because of that shared history. That being said, be aware that we will do whatever is necessary to ensure that her safety here is not compromised again. Any further acts of aggression, no matter the cause, will be met with the full force of the Autobots. Your weapons have been confiscated and will not be returned, and all communications with your base must be cleared by myself or another senior Autobot officer until further notice. You won't discuss Alias via radio while you are here or at all once you leave. If you cannot agree to these terms, there is no need for us to proceed any further."

To his credit, the major didn't protest. "Not a problem at all, Optimus. We understand need-to-know restrictions. We will maintain the highest level of security with this information, and we appreciate the second chance," Lennox agreed, and his team all nodded. Then he looked up at Alias again. "And for the record, I  _am_  sorry about what happened. But when we saw you, we really did think you were–"

"If you tell me again that I look like a Decepticon, I may decide to act like one and squash you underfoot like a tiny little bug," Alias interrupted in a perfectly calm, pleasant voice. "For the record."

"She'll do it, too," Crosshairs told them as Epps whistled low and Lennox took a quick step back. "You don't want to cross this one."

Ironhide nodded. "She's mean. Bites, even."

"Just ask Starscream," Smokescreen chimed in.

"What's left of him. Chomp chomp," Crosshairs added, and when Alias planted her hands on her hips and glared at him, the sniper held up his hands in surrender.

"When are you planning on letting that go?" she asked, exasperated.

The three of them exchanged a look. "Never?" Smokescreen suggested. Ironhide gave a grin that was all teeth, and Crosshairs thought for a second, then nodded too.

"Yeah,  _never_  sounds about right," he agreed.

"Optimus, I was trying to explain before you were called away," Lennox said, and his serious tone took the humor from the room. "We were wrong and I completely admit that, but there's a good reason why we reacted the way we did."

"We will discuss that later," Optimus said, but Alias held up a hand.

"No, Optimus, I want to hear this," Alias interrupted, and she glanced back at him. She looked a little apologetic for publicly contradicting him but also very, very stubborn. "I know you have your reasons for waiting, but I'm the one who got shot. I think I have a right to know why."

Prime's eyes narrowed–he really did not want to get into this with Lennox, especially right now–but he could practically hear her thinking of what he'd told her before taking her in to help interrogate Starscream. He would allow any other Autobot to hear Lennox's explanation and he'd promised to stop keeping her on the sidelines and treat her like the others. He could see in her eyes and the set of her jaw that she wasn't going to back down on this, and arguing with her about it would do nothing to bring her blood pressure down.

Finally Optimus turned back to Lennox. "All right, then. Explain," he snapped, and he couldn't keep the anger from his tone now. "You know how we feel about those AT missiles, and not only did you bring them to our home, you used them to attack the first Autobot you saw with no provocation whatsoever. If any other human had done what you did today, I would call it an act of war! So go ahead, Lennox. Let's hear it," he said, voice dropping to a growl, "and for your sake, it better be damn good."


	31. Friend

Lennox held up his hands, beseeching Optimus for calm. “There have been four Decepticon attacks on classified military installations around the world in the last five days, Prime. We’ve kept it out of the news so far but that’s going to go out the window as soon as they hit one on US territory. Every attack starts the same way–a lone black jet scouts the location, then vanishes. Within minutes an overwhelming force of Decepticons arrives and systematically destroys everything. So far they haven’t left any survivors and we don’t know what they want.”

“You have proof of this?” Optimus demanded. He was angry enough to doubt every word they said, especially since they’d had plenty of time to concoct a story while he’d been dealing with Alias’ injury-triggered panic attack, but he had to admit that it was plausible. Starscream had been their prisoner for five days, after all, and a black Decepticon jet who could vanish in an instant sounded just like his fellow Seeker, Skywarp.

Perhaps Megatron wasn’t taking his second’s disappearance so lightly after all.

“In the helicopter, yes,” Andronov said, nodding. “We have brought you all the information we have in hopes that you and your Autobots could help us to predict future attacks.”

Lennox looked at Alias again. “I understand that it’s offensive to say you resemble a Decepticon, but I didn’t mean it like you look evil or ugly or something. We honestly thought you were that specific Decepticon scout who precedes those attacks. As far as we knew when we arrived, the Autobots  _had_  no dark jets. We saw you circling Metroplex, shooting at Skyfire, and we reacted with what we thought was appropriate force.”

“And you couldn’t radio me, or check in with command, before you decided to open fire?” Skyfire asked.

The human shook his head. “The attacks have been extremely fast and we’re not certain our communications are secure. We don’t know how they’re finding our allies’ bases. This jet can just _vanish_ –we didn’t want to tip him off that we were there. We used that AT missile because we wanted to capture the scout. If we’d been successful, we were going to turn him over to you for questioning so we could try to find out how they’re locating NEST assets and what the hell they’re looking for there.” He looked back at Alias and spread his hands. “We didn’t know about you, Alias. From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. We never would’ve fired on you had we known you were here or what your alt-mode is. We truly thought we were acting to defend ourselves, and the Autobots, too.”

Alias glanced back at Optimus. He held her gaze for a moment, gauging her reaction, before she looked back to the humans. “Contingent on that proof, I accept your explanation and apology,” she said at last. “If Optimus is satisfied, I’m satisfied.”

Optimus had to fight not to growl that no, he  _wasn’t_  satisfied. He’d been hit by one of those damn AT missiles before and he knew how exactly how it felt to be blasted out of his alt-mode and have every joint stabbed with shrapnel. Even warriors who’d been fighting and shrugging off injuries for millions of years said those things hurt like hell, and Alias was no hardened warrior. But he had always tried not to be the kind of Prime who allowed emotion to force him into irrational decisions, and Lennox and Epps had proven their loyalty and friendship multiple times over the last few years. He wouldn’t sever that relationship just because the Autobot they’d inadvertently hurt was Alias.

“One time only, I am willing to call it a misunderstanding and move on, but all of my directives still stand,” he finally said, and all of them breathed a sigh of relief. “You were called here to help her procure equipment and supplies. Are you still prepared to do so?”

“Absolutely,” Lennox agreed immediately. “Anything we can do to make this right, we’ll do.”

Ishihara stepped up. “May I take over, Major?” When Lennox swept out a hand in clear invitation, she looked up at Alias. “Please tell me about your project and the equipment you will require to continue it.”

Alias glanced at Optimus, then knelt down when he nodded. “My project deals with Energon synthesis without fossil fuels–not a synthetic Energon substitute, but the real thing,” she told them. “How far back do I need to begin to explain the process to you?”

Andronov moved forward then. “Possibly I will be more informed on this matter. I acquired an interest in Energon in my work on energy weapons and I am aware of a similar project sponsored by the Americans,” he said, stopping beside Ishihara. “Are you familiar with the work of a woman named Anna Elias?”

Optimus looked at Alias, hiding his own surprise, but all she did was reply, “Extremely.”

“Good. I also have been following her recent research closely,” he said, looking pleased. “I had hoped to recruit her to NEST, but unfortunately she has vanished. Two weeks ago she left the lab and we have been unable to find any trace of her ever since. When Prime called to request our help in retrieving these items for you, I had hoped that perhaps she came here to continue her work.”

“She didn’t,” Alias replied in a tone that ended that discussion. “But I am very interested in how you had access to her project files. It was a top-secret government thing, yes?”

“NEST monitors all Autobot-related areas of government,” Lennox explained. “Sometimes officially, but most of the time the other departments don’t even know about it. We’ve got the best hackers around working for us. Every drop of data those scientists saved, we’ve got.”

Alias didn’t immediately say anything to this revelation that she’d been being spied upon, but Optimus knew her well enough to know she had to be angry about it. “What is the status of the rest of the research team that she was working with?” he asked, both to move away from the topic of NEST stealing her work and because he knew that this had been one of Anna’s biggest worries.

“Their breakthroughs have stopped since Dr. Elias disappeared,” Andronov said. “In fact their latest attempt to generate Energon ended with quite a significant explosion.”

Alias didn’t appear to react to this, but Optimus remembered what she’d said about unauthorized attempts to recreate her research resulting in a plasma bomb instead of an Energon generator. “Was anyone injured?” he asked, looking down at the humans again.

“No,” Andronov replied, and Alias sat back on her heels. He frowned up at her. “Robotic facial expressions can be difficult so I apologize if I have misread you, but that news does not seem to have pleased you.”

“You aren’t the only ones with their fingers in that pie,” Alias told him, finally speaking up again. “The Decepticons have a mole on the team. If anyone was stupid enough to stand beside that damn machine and turn it on, I was hoping it would be their spy.”

“We know already about this spy,” Andronov said, eyes narrowing. “But that information is beyond classified and I would be greatly curious to find out how you know about it.”

“How about you don’t worry your pretty little head about what I know and how I know it,” Alias shot back, and there was that anger he’d anticipated, all right. Optimus stepped a little closer, seeing the tension in the lines of her body–it was probably not visible to anyone else, but he’d become very attuned to those little cues lately. He didn’t touch her, but when she glanced over and saw that he was nearer, her shoulders relaxed a fraction.

“If there is a security breach, we need to know about it,” Ishihara pressed.

Alias tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm. Well, let’s think. You hacked into their system and stole information. The Decepticons put a mole on the team itself. You’ve lost the lead researcher, and your classified bases are being systematically raided. Do you think maybe the shorter list might be where you people  _haven’t_ had a security breach?”

Ishihara didn’t look convinced. “So you weren’t collaborating with someone on that project?”

Alias rolled her eyes and stood up. “If I was, would I be talking to you right now instead of heading over there and joining them?” she asked, not even trying to hide the sarcasm now. Optimus murmured her name and she paused, then spoke again in a deliberately calmer voice. “Look, I know enough about Energon to know that the data the spy is stealing–the data  _you’re_  stealing–is worthless. Thompson isn’t going to give the Decepticons anything they can use, but he’s already disposed of one scientist and the other members of the team should be protected from him.”

“Wait, are you saying that  _Thompson_ is the Decepticon spy?” Andronov asked, and Alias nodded immediately.

“I’m certain of it.”

“No offense,” Ishihara said, looking up at Alias with a little frown, “but how can you say that Thompson is the traitor when Eliasis the one who sabotaged the team’s data and vanished without a trace?”

Alias stared at her for a moment, clearly taken aback. “What… are you crazy?” she asked in a stunned voice. “You can’t seriously think  _she_  was working for the Decepticons.”

“There’s plenty of evidence to suggest it,” Lennox said, looking at her oddly now. “Certain emails, calls, a few large cash deposits. The team’s data files were deliberately tampered with so they couldn’t continue without her. DoD’s running an investigation into her associations right now, but it seems pretty clear. If you’ve been in their systems too, I’m actually a bit surprised that you came to a different conclusion.”

Alias’ hand went to her mouth as she stepped back. “No,” she whispered. “No, that’s not why… that’s not true.”

Optimus put a hand on her shoulder and took over. Pretending she was nothing more than one of his Autobots was one thing, but this was something else entirely. “You are wrong about Dr. Elias. She has been an ally of the Autobots for longer than you have and she is a personal friend. Her honor is beyond reproach. Any discrepancies she created in the data she gave her to handlers was done to protect us. We learned of Thompson’s involvement directly from Starscream. I can tell you with absolute certainty that Anna Elias did not vanish of her own free will. She was betrayed by Thompson and taken.”

“ _Taken?_  How do you–” Lennox started to ask, alarmed, but Optimus looked at Alias’ frozen, shocked expression and shook his head sharply.

“We are finished discussing this,” he rumbled, feeling Alias start to tremble ever so slightly under his hand. He wanted to hold her, but he knew she wouldn’t welcome that right now with so many strangers around. “Move on.”

Ishihara exchanged a glance with Andronov. “I’m sorry, Alias,” she said after a moment, looking back up at Alias who was clearly devastated by their accusations. “We didn’t realize she was a friend of yours.”

Alias didn’t make any reply. Optimus turned and frowned at her, worried that learning she’d been framed on the heels of that panic attack might’ve been too much for her. “Alias?”

She shook her head sharply. “A friend,” she said, but something about her voice didn’t sound quite right. She tried again. “A… friend. She. Friend was.” The words were slurred, making her sound nearly drunk. She shook her head again and staggered a little as though that small movement had thrown her off-balance. “Wasn’t.”

“Alias,” Optimus repeated, grabbing both her shoulders now and starting to get truly worried. “Are you all right?” She stared blankly at him for an instant as though she didn’t recognize him at all, and seeing her look at him like he was a complete stranger pushed Prime straight into terror.  _“Alias!”_

She clutched at Prime’s arm with one hand, now obviously recognizing him, but instead of being comforted to see him, he saw nothing but fear in her eyes. “Friend,” Alias said again, but then she grimaced and put a hand to her forehead. She shook her head once more but the movement nearly made her fall over and when she tried to speak again, nothing came out but gibberish.

Optimus didn’t know what was happening to her, but it was no panic attack, no flashback. “Get them out of here!” he snapped, and Crosshairs and Ironhide converged on the humans as Alias’ knees buckled. Her left wing snapped out, nearly tripping Perceptor as he rushed over to help. It thrashed in the air for a moment and then went rigid, twitching against her side instead of folding neatly around her. “What’s going on?” Optimus demanded, struggling to support her as she half-collapsed against him, one leg refusing to support her weight.

“Some kind of hemispheric malfunction in her central processor, perhaps,” Perceptor said as her left arm partially transformed, then snapped back. Her battle-mask came up on the left side only, jammed briefly, then folded away again. “I don’t know–”

Prime stopped listening after  _malfunction._ With Ratchet’s concerns over her vitals, he truly did not want to use the kill-switch right now. “Alias, can you initiate the shut down?” he asked.

The overhead com link snapped on before he had even finished the question. “ _Don’t shut down!”_  Ratchet shouted. Optimus heard his voice echo down the halls and was stunned to realize that he was using the general announcement system. He was taking no chances that they wouldn’t get his message. “Prime, Alias, do you hear me?  _Don’t end the link!”_

“We read you, Ratchet, but there’s a problem here–” Optimus started to reply, but the medic cut him off.

“I don’t care if she’s on fire–it is vitally important that she stays in the link! Do  _not_ shut her down for any reason!” Ratchet repeated urgently. “Get her back here immediately and bring Skyfire and the humans with you. Hurry!”

“The humans?” Perceptor echoed, frowning, but Prime had already scooped Alias up and was running out of the room with her, Skyfire hot on his heels.

“Bring them!” he shouted over his shoulder. He didn’t care why Ratchet wanted them–if he needed them, then they were coming whether they wanted to or not.

“You heard Prime,” Ironhide said, and he and Crosshairs both transformed. “All of you, get in, now!”

 


	32. I Just Don't Know

Optimus wasn’t waiting for them. He sprinted down the hall, holding Alias tight while her body transformed out-of-control back and forth and she stared up at him in terror. Every time she tried to speak, nothing came out but  _friend_  or incoherent babbling. It only made her more frightened. Prime was near panic himself when he burst into the lab and demanded, “What the hell is happening to her?”

“I think she’s having a stroke,” Ratchet told him from his position leaning over Anna’s table.

The word meant little to Optimus, but he could tell from the medical officer’s face that it was serious. “You’ve treated humans before. Can’t you do something?” Optimus asked as he put Alias down on her table but didn’t dare let go of her. Much as he knew she hated to be confined now, he had to very nearly pin her down so she didn’t throw herself off the table while her left side continued to violently malfunction. Ratchet was doing exactly the same thing, restraining Anna as she seized hard enough to nearly fling herself out of the link machine. “Can’t you stop this?”

“I’ve treated humans for minor conditions, but I don’t have the knowledge or equipment for anything like this,” Ratchet replied tensely. He glanced up briefly. “Prime, this is way beyond first aid. I’m over my head here. She needs human medical attention and she needs it  _now._ ”

Ironhide and Crosshairs skidded into the lab and the NEST team jumped out. “What the hell is all of this?” Lennox asked, staring up at the two tables high above his head.

“I don’t have time to answer your questions,” Ratchet spoke right over him. “If you want to redeem yourself, now’s your chance. We have a human here who urgently needs medical care beyond what I can provide. How fast can you get a fully-equipped medical team here?”

“What does that have to do with Alias going haywire?” Epps asked, but Lennox ignored that.

“Epps has formal battlefield first-aid training and Andronov has informal hands-on experience. There are trauma teams at Ellington Field outside Houston that can mobilize rapidly,” Lennox replied. “But  _fully equipped_  covers a lot. What exactly are we looking at here?”

Skyfire pulled up the 3D brain scan again and stared at it in horror. “Oh, Primus, you’re right, Ratchet, but it’s not just a stroke. It’s a cerebral hemorrhage,” he breathed. Skyfire started to type on the computer, muttering to himself about energy levels and link balances, but no one paid attention. That area of darkness spreading over the image of her brain finally made Optimus understand what was happening. Fear froze his voice. Everything Anna was, her memories, her personality, her intelligence and sense of humor and creativity–everything was in her brain. If Optimus had thought he was worried before, that was nothing compared to the dread that swamped him now.

“If it’s really a CVA, it would be much better for us to take the patient to the hospital instead of–” Epps began, but Ratchet cut him off.

“Under no circumstances can she be moved! Whatever happens has to happen right here,” the medic interrupted.

“Got it,” Skyfire said suddenly. “Link stabilized.” Anna’s seizure finally stopped and Ratchet cautiously lifted his hands. Behind him, Alias’ left side stopped its random transformations and Optimus slowly relaxed the tight hold he had on her, but he didn’t let go of her shoulders.

“Is it over?” Optimus asked, staring at the dark area staining that 3D model and hoping to see it start to fade, or at least for its growth to begin to slow.

It didn’t.

Ratchet shook his head. “No, Prime. You don’t understand. It’s not even close to being over.”

“It’s her, isn’t it? Anna Elias  _did_  come here,” Ishihara said suddenly. She looked at Alias, then at the link table. “She’s you. This new Autobot–it’s you.”

Optimus glared over his shoulder, one enormous fist clenching. “None of you were to know of this,” he growled. “If you say a single _word_ –”

“Don’t worry, Prime,” Lennox said, holding up his hands. He sent a stern look at the other three and they all nodded, and he looked back at Alias. “As far as we’re concerned, you’re still just a new Autobot arrival. No one will hear anything different from us, you have my word.”

Alias cautiously sat up. Optimus moved closer to steady her and she leaned heavily against his shoulder, but Ratchet spoke to Lennox before either of them could say anything. “Look, are you going to help us or not?” he demanded. “This is an emergency and I don’t know how much time we have here!”

“We’ll help,” Lennox replied immediately. He looked at Skyfire. “You can get us to the base and back faster than our chopper, and it sounds like speed is of the essence. Take me with you and I’ll radio them on the way–you can clear everything I say. Ishihara, you’re with me. Epps, Andronov, stay here and see if there’s anything you can do to stabilize her until we get back.”

“Yes, sir,” Epps agreed immediately. He turned back to Crosshairs and Andronov. “There’s a big trauma kit in the chopper. I need it.” Crosshairs immediately shifted back into his Corvette mode and sped off the instant Andronov was inside.

Within seconds, only Optimus, Alias, Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Epps remained in the lab. “Ratchet, am I going to die?” Alias asked softly, and the relief Optimus felt at hearing her actually speak understandably again was immediately canceled out by that question.

“No,” Optimus answered her firmly. “You’re not dying.”

Ratchet glanced cautiously at him, then sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know, Alias.”

“Tell me the truth,” she said. “If I’m dying, I want to know.”

The medic looked acutely uncomfortable as he glanced from her to Prime and back again. “I don’t know, and that  _is_  the truth. I’ll be able to tell you more when Lennox gets back with a human medical team.”

“But you think I’m going to die,” Alias persisted.

“Stop  _saying_ that!” Optimus demanded, tightening his hold on her.

She didn’t look at him. “Please, just tell me what you do know.”

Ratchet sighed again and rubbed a hand over his face. “Look, the best I can say is that I think we have time for the medics to get here, and that it’s a damn good thing this happened while you were in the link because Alias is acting like a life-boat for your mind right now. And I know that you need to stay in the link because if you try to return now, I can’t guarantee that your brain could physically handle it,” Ratchet said at last. Then he held out his hands helplessly. “But I’m no human doctor, Alias. Your brain is bleeding and I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t know what medications would help you or how much to give, or if we even have them here. I don’t know how much damage is already done or how to prevent more.  _I just don’t know._ ”

Alias nodded, accepting the news far more calmly than Optimus was. Every word Ratchet had said sent terror through his spark. But she finally looked up at him and said, “I need Cade to go get that computer for me now, Optimus.”

It was the last thing he would ever have expected her to say. “Is that really the most important thing right now?” he said, trying to keep his own voice steady and knowing that he was failing.

“Yes, it’s very important, and it has to be right now,” she replied, still with that almost unnatural calm. “It requires biometric keys to access, and I need to open it before I di–”

_“Stop saying that you’re dying!”_  Optimus shouted.

In the silence that followed his outburst, Alias gently cupped his face in her hands and pulled him close, touching her forehead to his. “It’s going to be all right, Optimus,” she murmured gently.

He covered her hands with his and closed his eyes, accepting comfort instead of giving it this time. “Is it? Are you sure?” he whispered, not even trying to hide his fear. She laced her fingers through his and he held on tight. “Can you promise me that?”

Epps stared at them, jaw dropping. He turned to Ironhide. “Am I actually seeing what I think I’m seeing right now?”

Ironhide hesitated, but finally he nodded and put his finger to his lips. “Officially, I’m telling you there’s nothing to see, so keep it to yourself.”

Ratchet looked down at Epps. “Why are you still standing there?” he demanded. Optimus and Alias broke apart at the reminder that the human was still in the room, but Epps noticed that Optimus didn’t release her hands. “Didn’t you stay here to help?”

Epps snapped back into focus. “Put me up there, Ironhide,” he said, and the big warrior complied immediately. His eyebrows flew up when he finally saw what was on the top of the table. Anna lay on a gel-topped stretcher inside an enormous machine that was nearly twice as tall as he was. Everything from mid-chest up was hidden in darkness. How did they expect him to do anything for her like this? “Jesus. She can’t come out of there at all?”

“Absolutely not,” Ratchet said firmly. “If she leaves that machine, the link will be disrupted.”

“Oh, that’s going to make things hard,” Epps said, finally shaking off his shock and circling the machine. “Can you guys at least take the back off of it or something? The problem’s in her head so we kind of need to access her head. I can’t even check her pupils right now.”

“Maybe. Teletraan, call Perceptor and Wheeljack to the lab immediately,” Ratchet said, and Epps heard it echo down the halls.

Epps pushed her sleeve up to check her pulse and froze when he revealed the yellow, faded remains of her bruises and the mostly-healed electrical burns on her forearm. The skin around her wrist was shiny and thin, obviously still healing after being rubbed away by some kind of rope or straps. “Jesus,” he whispered again. It was instantly clear what had happened to her before she’d wound up here with the Autobots. He looked up at Alias, wanting to say something but having no idea what.

She just shrugged at the expression on his face. “The Decepticons aren’t pleasant hosts. But they got nothing for it.”

“But they will,” Optimus growled. “I promise you that.”

Epps looked away, ashamed that they’d ever accused her of being a Decepticon spy. If there was any way they  _hadn’t_ put their foot in it since they’d met her, he couldn’t think of what it could be. He glanced up at Ratchet. “There’s not a lot I can do until they get back from the chopper. Can you give me any kind of information from this huge-ass machine?”

In reply, Ratchet propped his handheld against the far side of the machine. On it was a real-time readout of Anna’s vitals, as well as the 3D brain image. “That help?”

“Yeah.” He studied it for a moment, shaking his head. “Damn. Her blood pressure is sky-high. We’ve got to get that down immediately. What kind of meds do you have here?”

Wheeljack entered then, Cade and Bee on his heels. Alias tuned out of the medical discussion and looked down at Cade. “Remember when you asked when you’d be going to get that computer for me? Well, the time is now, if you’re still up for it.”

Cade looked around at the frantic activity around her human body and exchanged a worried look with Bumblebee. “What’s going on here? Are you okay?”

“In a word, no,” Alias replied, and all it took was one look at Prime’s face to confirm that. He looked terrified in a way Cade hadn’t seen since the day Anna had arrived and he’d gotten his first glimpse of her lying still and battered on Ratchet’s table. Alias kept talking before Cade could ask any other questions, though. “This could be a limited time situation, so I need you to move fast if you’re going. Will you go?”

“Sure, of course, whatever you need me to do,” he answered, and Bee nodded, too. “Just tell me where to go and I’m gone.”

Alias looked relieved. “Thank you, Cade,” she said. “The first thing you’ll need is my key to the safe deposit box. I didn’t keep it with me, of course, so at least I didn’t have it when the Decepticons got me, but I was based out of Nevada for the last several months and everything’s actually in Las Vegas.”

“Not a problem,” Cade reassured her. “Like I said, just tell me where and I’ll leave right away. If time’s a factor, well, I can always fly out and rent a car when I get there.”

“I will authorize sending you via ground-bridge. We’ll send Drift as well, just in case there’s any reason we can’t use the bridge to bring him back,” Optimus said, speaking up for the first time since Cade arrived. He took Alias’ hand when she looked at him, startled. He glanced at the other table where Wheeljack and Perceptor were starting to remove the back from the link machine so Epps could have access to her head. Optimus closed his eyes briefly before looking back at Alias. “If getting that damn computer is what you’re worried about, we’ll get it here as fast as possible.”

Alias gave Prime a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said softly, and he nodded. Then she looked back to Cade. “The key is in my locker at the YMCA–I’ll give you the address and locker combination. Of course it’s in the women’s locker room,” she said as though just realizing it.

“Send Ishihara with him,” Epps suggested from the link table.

“That would solve some problems,” Alias agreed. “I hadn’t planned on ever sending anyone else to get this. If she could pretend to be me, that could make things go much more smoothly.”

“I’ll clear it with Lennox but I’m sure he’ll agree,” Epps said as Crosshairs sped back into the lab. Andronov got out and ran around to pull an enormous duffel bag from the trunk, and Ironhide passed it up to Epps immediately.

“What else?” Cade asked.

Alias watched Epps tear open the huge first-aid kit and start pulling out everything he needed to start an IV. Then she forced her attention back onto Cade. “Once you have the key, you need to go to the casino cage at the Mirage and ask for a manager to take you to the safes. Once you’re there, you’ll have to present the key and… and my ring.” She looked over at her body. “I never take it off. Perceptor gave it to me when I left–it’s actually an emergency beacon. There’s not another one like it. You–well, Ishihara–will have to present it as proof of identity.”

Epps took her hand and, after a little tugging, he had the ring off. He tossed it down to Cade, then went back to starting the IV.

Cade caught it and examined it. It was very plain, just a titanium band inset with a purple stone, but then he noticed the intricately twisted prongs surrounding the stone didn’t just hold it in place. Tiny wires, thinner than a human hair, protruded from the tips of the prongs and were embedded almost invisibly within the stone. It was very distinctive, but not something that would stand out unless someone was looking for it. And on the inside of the band, almost too tiny to make out, was an Autobot symbol.

He looked up to see Alias staring at the ring with an unreadable expression on her face, but he didn’t have to be told what this ring had meant to her. For three years, it was all she’d had of the Autobots. “I’ll take good care of it,” he said, thinking of his wife’s wedding ring. He wore it on a chain around his neck and never, ever took it off. He made sure Alias saw the plain gold band on the necklace when he put pulled it out and put her ring on there for safekeeping. “You’ll get it back, I promise.”

She nodded, seeming grateful that he understood. “They’re going to tell you they don’t rent safes to anyone but guests,” she said, getting back on topic. “Just keep pushing. They’re going to threaten to have you removed, but the security guard who comes should take you to a manager instead of throwing you out, and that’s who you’ll give the key and my ring to. Finally, they’ll ask for a written password.”

“What’s the password?”

She smiled. “Actually, there’s not one. Give them a piece of paper folded in half with nothing written on it.” When he just blinked at her, she laughed. “Oh, come on, that’s clever!”

Cade finally laughed too. “I think that’s the most unguessable password I’ve ever heard of,” he agreed, shaking his head. “Any other hoops we need to jump through?”

“No, that’s it. They should let you access my safe then, and the computer is the only thing in there. But Cade, please hurry,” Alias said, her smile fading. “I locked that computer specifically to prevent anyone, humans or Transformers, from getting into it without me. I don’t know if they’ll be able to crack it after I’m…” She glanced at Optimus. “They won’t be able to access it without my help,” she finished instead. “I need to give this data to Perceptor while I still can.”

Cade’s heart skipped a beat at the clear implication that she didn’t expect to survive whatever was going on, but when he looked at the expression on Prime’s face, he swallowed his questions. He would never forget the moment when the doctors had told him that his wife only had a few weeks left to live. He knew how that expression felt from the inside. “I’ll find Drift and get out of here as soon as Ishihara gets back,” he promised.

There was a loud clang from the other table and they all jumped, but it was only the back of the machine finally coming off. “Be  _careful!_ ” Optimus snarled.

“We are being careful, Prime, believe me,” Wheeljack told him soothingly. “This isn’t the first time we’ve worked on a machine while it’s in operation.”

Alias got to her feet, holding onto Prime’s arm, and his focus immediately snapped back to her. “I’m okay,” she said, but he didn’t let go of her even though she did seem perfectly steady on her feet. She rested a hand on his chest and gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m all right, Optimus. I just want to see if I can help. I have a vested interest, you know, and I might be able to help them figure out a way to modify the machine for better access.”

He finally released her although it was clearly not easy for him to do. “You probably can, since you invented the thing.” For an instant, every Autobot in the room stared at Optimus, and he shook his head with a sigh. “You really think I didn’t know about this project from the start?”

Cade caught Perceptor’s eye and smiled ruefully. There truly wasn’t much that happened that Prime didn’t know about. They were saved from having to reply by Skyfire’s arrival. Just behind him were Hoist and Hound. Lennox and Ishihara got out of the Jeep and Hound popped his doors to release a four-man team of military physicians. “Optimus Prime, let me introduce you to–” Lennox began, but Optimus cut him off.

“I’ll learn their names later,” Prime interrupted. “Just get them working!”

Lennox raised his eyebrows. “Okay, you heard the man,” he said, turning back to the trauma team. “Your patient is up there. Epps and Ratchet can give you all the details.”

The Autobots lifted the medics up onto the link table while Hound popped all his doors and dropped off a surprising amount of equipment. Ratchet looked around the crowded room and said, “Anyone not directly working on the problem needs to leave immediately. This is a small space and you’re in the way.” He glanced back at Optimus and opened his mouth, but Optimus said,  _“No,”_ with such finality that the medic didn’t insist. “All right, Prime stays, but everyone else, out!”

Crosshairs clapped Bumblebee on the shoulder and started ushering the unneeded people to the door. “Let’s go, Bee. Andronov, Ishihara, Lennox, all of you, too,” the sniper said. He glanced at Cade and Ironhide, but Ironhide shook his head and looked pointedly at Optimus, and Crosshairs turned to the vehicles instead. “Hoist, Hound, roll out. Come on, all of you, clear the room.”

The door closed behind them, cutting the noise level in the lab in half. Ratchet quickly brought the new arrivals up to speed while Alias joined the other two working on the back of the link machine. Cade looked over at Optimus, who didn’t seem to know what to do with himself.

It was a feeling he remembered well. Cade caught Ironhide’s eye and they both moved over to stand beside him. He didn’t so much as glance at them. Even from his position at Prime’s feet, Cade could tell he was wound tight as a bowstring as he watched the medical team’s every move, his enormous hands clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing. He knew that he should be finding Drift and Ishihara and getting ready to retrieve Anna’s laptop, but he couldn’t leave Optimus like this.

“Optimus,” Ironhide said quietly after a few minutes. “What do you need?”

That question seemed to completely derail him. Optimus finally looked away from the chaos around the link machine and stared at Ironhide with a flat, stunned expression. Cade recognized it as helplessness, and it was awful to see it on a face that was usually so sure and commanding. Ironhide reached out and clasped Prime’s upper arm when he didn’t answer. “Optimus?”

Cade tapped Ironhide’s foot. “Pick me up,” he said, and when the warrior had lifted him up to their level, he said, “Optimus, we’re going to take you out of here now.”

“No,” Prime whispered, but Cade persisted.

“Yes, we are,” he said firmly. “We won’t go so far that you can’t get back here in three seconds if they call you, but you don’t need to be in here right now. Trust me on this–I know.” That finally got Prime’s attention and he looked at Cade, who lifted his hand to show his wedding ring. “I know,” he repeated softly.

Optimus closed his eyes and finally nodded. Ironhide steered him out by his arm and into the lab next door. Once they were inside, Optimus slid down the wall and sat with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Ironhide put Cade down and only hesitated a moment before joining them on the floor. “So what can we do for you?” Ironhide asked again, looking nearly desperate for some way to help.

Cade shook his head when Optimus didn’t answer. “Everything that can be done is happening next door,” he replied at last. “We just wait.”

“You two don’t have to stay,” Optimus said, not lifting his head.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ironhide said firmly as Cade shook his head again.

“And I’m the only person on this base who can honestly say that I know how you feel right now, Optimus,” Cade said. “I’m stuck to you like glue until you find out what’s going on.”

 


	33. Don't Waste It

Optimus didn’t argue with them. After a few minutes, he finally spoke again. “Cade. You had a similar experience with your wife?”

Cade realized he had never told Optimus how Emily had died–in fact, he realized now with more than a little shock that he rarely spoke of her at all. “Yeah,” he said, then cleared his throat when the word came out a little hoarse. “Yeah, very similar. I’ll tell you about it, if you want.” The offer wasn’t easy to make, but talking was just about the only thing they could do for Optimus right now.

“I would not ask you to relive painful memories,” Optimus said, but Cade ignored that. It was clear that Optimus needed both the distraction and the assurance that someone else had been where he was now–had been there and survived it. He wasn’t the Prime right now. He was just someone terrified that the one he loved might die.

Cade thought for a second, wondering where to start, but since he didn’t know how long it would be before Ratchet allowed Prime back into the lab, he started at the beginning. “Emily was my high school sweetheart. We were the biggest cliché in the world–I was the quarterback, she was the head cheerleader, senior prom queen and king, the whole thing. But it was more than that, too. Most people will tell you that real love doesn’t hit that young, but they were wrong when it came to us. Still, we were teenagers, no self-control, and we’d only been dating for a few months when Emily told me she was pregnant. Everyone told us that Tessa was a mistake and that we should give her up or she would ruin our lives, but thank God we were too young and dumb and in love to listen. We got married and kept her anyway, and Tessa’s–”

From his angle, he could see just enough of Prime’s face to see his slight smile. “The best thing that ever happened?” he interrupted, and Cade breathed a silent sigh of relief that his story seemed to be working as Prime added, “You’ve mentioned it once or twice.”

“It’s true every time,” Cade said, smiling a little now himself. “We were together for ten years–the best years, Optimus, the best years you can imagine. They weren’t easy, but every day I woke up beside her was worth everything. We both worked hard, put me through college first, then Emily. I was able to start Yeager Robotics, and we even saved enough to buy a house on some land. We lived for our daughter, and when we were finally stable financially we tried to have more, but we couldn’t… it was almost funny, you know? Tessa happened right away when we were trying  _not_ to get pregnant, but when we actually wanted to have a baby, it just never worked.”

He shook his head at the irony, then cleared his throat and went on. “We didn’t have money for a specialist then, and Emily kept saying it wasn’t necessary anyway because our family doctor said we were both fine. And even when it stretched out to years without success, Em just wasn’t worried. If I brought it up, she’d say that we were still young, and there was no rush, it would happen when the time was right and even if it didn’t, Tessa was enough. And I didn’t… I didn’t push, you know? I just trusted her. I was sure she’d tell me if something was wrong, but she… well, you know the type, Optimus. She was headstrong, determined, stubborn as hell. We would talk about everything but once she made up her mind, that was the end of the story. Sound like anyone you know?”

Optimus raised his head for the first time at that comparison, and Cade was glad to see the ghost of a smile on his face. “I might know someone like that.”

Cade grinned, but it didn’t last. “We’d given up by the time Tessa turned nine. I remember, she got this part in a school play. It wasn’t even the lead but she so excited about it, I can’t even tell you. Em and I were both supposed to go to the school on opening night to see her but I was coming from work and she was coming from home, so we didn’t ride together. And Em didn’t show up. I kept thinking that maybe she’d gotten the day confused, or that the car had broken down, or…”

“If you do not want to speak of this, Cade,” Optimus began when his voice faltered, but Cade shook his head.

“No, it’s okay. I do want to,” he said, and he meant it. “I never realized until now that I hadn’t told you about her, and that’s not right. Emily was everything to me. It’s not right that my closest friends don’t even know how she died. I want to tell you.” He finally looked up and met Prime’s gaze. “It’s just coming to the hard parts.”

“Take your time, then,” Optimus replied quietly.

Cade nodded. He took a few deep breaths and finally went on. “When we got home, Tessa ran into the house first. I’ll regret that forever, that she went in first and found her mother like that. The best we could tell, she had passed out at the top of the stairs and fell down. There was… there was a lot of blood…” He coughed and wiped his eyes, trying to push that image away, but he’d never had any success in forgetting the sight of Emily lying on that bloody floor and Tessa standing there screaming.

Unfortunately, there weren’t any good memories after that to replace it with. “We got her to a hospital right away. Because she still hadn’t woken up, they x-rayed everything, and that’s when they found the cancer. That’s why we could never get pregnant again–it was a slow kind of cancer, but we just hadn’t caught it in time. Tessa wasn’t an accident, she was a miracle. They said Em never should’ve been able to carry her at all, much less to term.”

He wiped both hands down his face, not that it did anything to erase the tears that kept flowing. “By the time she fell, there were tumors in her lungs, her liver, her brain, her bones. They took me aside and told me that she had a month to live at most. And not even three weeks later, Emily was gone. She came home for a week, but then the brain tumor… she spent the last twelve days in a coma.” He looked up at Optimus, not even trying to hide his pain. “I woke up one morning with everything I’d ever wanted, and three weeks later, she was gone. And I never saw it coming.”

Optimus bowed his head. “Cade, I am deeply sorry for your loss,” he said softly.

Cade nodded, wiping his face again. It had been nearly ten years since that school play and he still missed Emily so damn much. Every single day he thought of something he wanted to tell her, or saw something amazing and his first thought was to show her. Ironhide looked at him with aching sympathy. “What helped you get over it?”

“Tessa. She got me through it,” Cade answered immediately. “I wanted to die with Emily, but she needed me. I couldn’t hide from the world. She pulled me back into it and kept me alive.”

“Humans are lucky,” Optimus murmured, almost as though to himself. “That you can combine your sparks and create something that is part of you both. Something that will stay, even if one of you… doesn’t.”

Cade nodded as Prime’s voice trailed away. “You’re right. We  _are_  lucky. I don’t know what I would’ve done without Tessa after I lost Emily. She’s so much like her mother, sometimes I look at her and swear I see Em looking back.” Then he turned back to Ironhide. “But don’t misunderstand, Ironhide, I’m not over it. Some things you just don’t get over, but after a while, the loss gets easier to carry. I can look at it now and say that I got ten years of perfect, and I’m grateful. I got it right the first time, you know? Emily was it for me. No one else could ever compare.”

Optimus sat back against the wall, and while he didn’t look calm, at least he’d lost that shell-shocked expression he’d had when Cade had insisted that he leave. “Ten days,” he whispered.

“Ten days?” Ironhide echoed, frowning, but Cade understood.

“It’s not enough, I know. It’ll never be enough. You’ll never be ready to lose someone you love,” he said. He reached out and put his hand on Prime’s foot. “But Optimus, you don’t know what’s going to happen. If I’ve learned anything about Anna in the last week and a half, it’s that she’s a fighter. And I know how stupid it sounds for me to say this to you right now, but you’ve gotten a gift. She’s  _awake._  You have a chance to say all of the things you need to say. Not everyone gets that. Don’t waste it.”

 


	34. More Than Worth It

The door suddenly slid open and Optimus jumped to his feet as Ratchet and Wheeljack entered. “What happened? What did they find?” Optimus demanded, trying to keep his voice calm. Alias followed them in and reached for him the instant she entered the room. Optimus pulled her in close and felt her shaking as she held him, but not one of them spoke or met his eyes. Their silence exponentially increased his fear. “Anna? What did they find?” Optimus repeated. When she still didn’t say anything, just tightened her arms around him and tucked her head into the curve of his shoulder, he looked to Ratchet instead. “Ratchet, report!”

The medic finally met Prime’s gaze with such a grave expression that his spark froze with dread. “Optimus,” he said, but his voice dried up after that.

Optimus stared at him, torn between wanting to demand that he just say whatever bad news was choking him and praying that Ratchet would stay silent. He’d known Ratchet even longer than he’d known Ironhide–since he’d been Orion Pax, before the Matrix had chosen him–and in all that time, he’d never seen the medic look so devastated. “Say it, Ratchet.” Prime tried to make it an order, but fear took his voice and all that came out was a whisper. “Whatever it is, just say it.”

Ratchet ran a hand over his face but finally spoke. “It had to have been that head injury,” he said at last. “We know that it caused the optic nerve damage that led to her blindness, but apparently it also created a weakness in her middle cerebral artery. We scanned her brain a dozen times and we missed it, all of us. It was so subtle… it ruptured this morning, catastrophically. There’s… there’s a lot of damage, Optimus, both from the eschemia and the intracranial pressure, and we’re still trying to stop the hemorrhage. There’s–”

“What does all of that mean?” Optimus interrupted, holding Alias tighter as the word  _catastrophic_ echoed in his ears. “Skip all the medical jargon and just tell me what it  _means!_ ”

Ratchet held out his hands, then dropped them. “It means that this is even worse than I’d feared. If she hadn’t been linked into Alias… but if we don’t do something now, we won’t be able to maintain that link. The elevated pressure created by the intraparenchymal bleeding is threatening to–” He stopped, seeing the incomprehension on Prime’s face, and started again. “In the most basic terms, the bleeding doesn’t have anywhere to go in her skull and the pressure is destroying her brain from the inside. It’s compressing her brain stem, and if that gets damaged, it’s over. They need to do a procedure to reduce that pressure immediately. Once they do that, and unless something else happens, we can stabilize her enough to keep the link going.”

Optimus stared at him. He’d known as soon as he’d seen Ratchet’s face that the news was going to be bad, but not this bad. “How do… what do they…” he said, but he couldn’t seem to finish a full sentence.

“It’s called a craniotomy. That means cutting out a piece of her skull over where the blood has collected and placing a tube in that hole so that it can be drained,” Ratchet explained quietly. “That will reduce the pressure that’s causing the most immediate danger.”

_They wanted to cut into her skull?_  Prime stared at Ratchet, momentarily so stunned that he couldn’t even speak. How in the Allspark did humans ever survive anything if this kind of primitive brutality was the extent of their medical science? But even considering how barbaric the procedure sounded, it didn’t fully explain the look on the medic’s face. “Now tell me what you’re not telling me about this procedure,” Optimus said, feeling Alias tremble in his arms.

“Optimus, remember when she helped you with Starscream’s interrogation? She fell asleep and the link automatically ended.” The medic looked absolutely miserable when Optimus cautiously nodded, but he sighed deeply and continued. “She would usually be anesthetized for this, but we can’t let them do that. Anything they could give her to even dull the pain of the procedure is going to sedate her. They can numb her skin, but when they get to the bone…”

“Vector Sigma,” Prime whispered, understanding now. She was going to feel every single thing they did to her. “Isn’t there any other way to treat the pressure?”

“No.” Finally, Alias spoke up, although her voice was muffled since she didn’t lift her head. “But we don’t know how much of it I’ll actually feel, Optimus. Maybe nothing. We’ve never tested how much the link is reciprocal from my human body to Alias. I mean, maybe we’re all worrying for nothing.” But when Optimus looked at Wheeljack and Ratchet’s body language and felt how tight Alias still held him, he didn’t think any of them believed that for an instant.

The medic tried a smile that failed immediately. “That is possible, yes. But regardless, Optimus, they need to do the procedure immediately. They’re actually prepping her for it right now,” Ratchet said unhappily. “If we can get the pressure down and the intracranial bleeding stopped, we should be able to extend the link for a while longer.”

“And then what?” Optimus asked. Ratchet looked away and didn’t answer, and Optimus frowned. “Ratchet, after this, what’s the next step?”

Ratchet shook his head mutely. Again, Alias was the one who answered. “There is no next step.” She finally lifted her head and met his gaze. “We’re just buying me a little more time. This kind of stroke, this severe… it’s going to be fatal. When the link ends, I end with it. There’s nothing they can do about it.”

_Fatal… fatal… fatal…_

The word echoed in his head, wiping every other thought away. Optimus heard Ironhide tell Cade to get moving on his retrieval mission, heard the door open and close, but none of it penetrated his mind. “Nothing?” he whispered as his vision narrowed to a pinpoint focus and his ears started to ring.

Alias looked up at him. “Optimus?” she murmured worriedly, but he couldn’t answer her.

“Optimus!” Ratchet snapped when Prime still couldn’t find his voice. The medic came over and shook him by the shoulder. “You have to concentrate right now!”

The world wavered around the edges and Optimus closed his eyes hard, feeling like he’d been shot in the chest. They were wrong–they had to be. Primus wouldn’t be this cruel. He wouldn’t bring Anna back to him and let him have a taste of what they could be only to take her away like this.  _They were wrong!_ “I don’t accept that,” he rasped in a voice like broken glass.

“Optimus, there’s no time for this right now,” Ratchet said urgently. “Do you understand me? They’re going to start any minute and you need to help her! Are you with us?”

Alias’ need grounded him when nothing else would and finally brought Optimus fully back to himself. He looked down at her and found her staring up at him with all her fear and worry in her eyes. He couldn’t fall apart right now, not while she was looking to him to support her during what would probably be a horrible experience. “I’m with you,” he told her, cupping her cheek and tightening his arm around her. “I’m with you. We’ll get through this.”

Alias closed her eyes briefly and covered his hand with hers. “Optimus, before they start, I want you to know that it’s been worth it,” she said softly, meeting his gaze again. “Everything that’s happened, even this–it was all worth it to come back to you. You are everything I ever wanted. If this week and a half is all we get, it was more than worth it.” Then without giving him a chance to reply, she slipped away from him and walked toward Wheeljack, who had been hovering nervously behind Ratchet. “Okay, I’m ready,” she said, and the engineer came forward with tools in hand.

“Ready for what?” Optimus asked fearfully as Alias knelt down so Wheeljack could reach her neck. What she’d just told him had sounded suspiciously like a goodbye. On the heels of Cade’s admonition to say everything that needed said, it was nothing short of terrifying. “What is he doing to her, Ratchet?”

Ratchet kept hold of Prime’s shoulder. “You’re not going to like this–none of us like this, but you have to keep it together right now,” he said quietly. When Optimus nodded, he said, “Not only can’t she have any human anesthesia, I can’t give Alias anything I’d normally give an Autobot for pain because we just don’t know how it would affect her–in fact, I’m going to have to give her a stimulant to ensure that she doesn’t pass out. She asked Wheeljack to disconnect her voice so she won’t… and the stimulant might make her have trouble controlling herself, so he’s disabling her cog, too. Even so, someone needs to restrain her so she doesn’t hurt herself or someone else. She said the only way she could stand it is if…” Ratchet hesitated, then let his free hand drop helplessly. “You’re the only one she trusts enough, Prime.”

Optimus had to clench his jaw to keep from shouting a denial. After everything the Decepticons had done to her, after all she had endured today, they really expected  _him_ to hold her down so she could be tortured again? Ratchet squeezed his shoulder harder and someone else–Ironhide–grasped his other arm, but whether they were lending him support or preventing him from lashing out was anyone’s guess. “I can’t do that!” he said, horrified.

Ratchet gripped his arm harder and spoke again, faster now. “Optimus,  _you don’t have a choice!_  If they don’t reduce this pressure immediately, Anna is going to die! And not in a few days or even a few hours–she will die in the next few  _minutes._  We would never put her through something like this if it wasn’t the only way! I would never, ever ask either of you to do this for anything less than life or death.” He shook him a little when Optimus shook his head in denial again. “Optimus, she agreed to this just to have a little more time with you–she’s disconnecting her voice to spare  _you._ If she can stand it, you have to!”

Optimus locked his knees as the world tried to fade again, but the medic was right–there was no choice. Even in the middle of this nightmare, Alias was thinking of him. He had to be at least as strong as she was. Finally he gave Ratchet a stiff nod. “Just… just tell them to make it fast.”

“Believe me, they know,” Ratchet said.

Alias came back over and looked up at Optimus, her eyes very wide despite the brave face she was trying so hard to show. He put his arms around her again and tuned everything else out–she was all that mattered. “We’ll get through this. Remember, I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. You promised,” he whispered, and she nodded shakily.

He started to lead her toward the central chair, but she shook her head and pointed to the floor instead. “Right,” he said, not questioning her preference. Whether she didn’t want to pollute the memory of their time in that chair with this, or if it was because of a fear of falling if she wasn’t able to stop herself from fighting him, or if being in a chair in the middle of a room while someone hurt her brought back bad memories, he didn’t care. He would give her all the choice he possibly could. If she preferred the floor, they’d sit on the floor, and that was all.

He sat down against the wall again and she followed, putting her back to his chest. She urged his legs up and around her waist, then put his hands on her wrists and folded her arms over her chest. Optimus would never have held her this way after her captivity, ever. This wasn’t an embrace. It was a trap. He leaned forward to put his cheek against hers and shifted his grasp so that he held her hands, fingers interlaced, instead. “I love you. Stay with me,” he murmured as she trembled in his grip. “Remember that it’s me. I will let you go the instant they allow it.”

Alias nodded, holding his hands very tightly. Ratchet knelt down beside them, his face solemn. “I’m going to give you something to prevent you from losing consciousness now, Alias. It’s going to make you feel very jittery,” he said, and when she nodded, he gave her an injection. He’d clearly learned his lesson from her earlier panic attack because he did it in such a way that she never saw the injector that sent the medication into her Energon circulation stream, but as soon as it hit, her trembling immediately worsened. Her cheek tensed against Prime’s as she clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.

Ratchet stood and stepped back. “Wheeljack is going back to monitor the link during the procedure. I’m staying with you to make sure you’re all right, but I won’t hover.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but finally he shook his head and joined Ironhide on the far side of the lab.

“I’ll tell them to begin,” Wheeljack said, and despite his clear effort to keep his tone neutral, his unhappiness came through loud and clear. “I’ll be back as soon as it’s over. Good luck, guys.”


	35. Until the Stars Go Out

Optimus forgot about them and concentrated on Alias. Wheeljack hadn’t even been gone half a minute when her body tensed and she flinched, and he knew they’d started the procedure in the other room. That, and that her hopes that she wouldn’t feel anything hadn’t panned out. “Do you want me to talk to you?” he murmured, wanting to remind her that he was the one holding her, not the Decepticons, but remembering that she’d said hearing voices from behind her was a trigger for her now.

But Alias nodded almost frantically and Optimus spoke in the most soothing tone he could manage, Cade’s admonition foremost in his mind. “What you told me just now–you’re right. It has all been worth it. These last few days have shown me what a fool I was to ever send you away. Having you back is amazing enough, but being with you as Alias is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

Alias squeezed his hands and Optimus understood her agreement. He wasn’t finished, though. “But as wonderful as this has been, I told you I’m greedy. I want more than these few days so I’m not giving up. I know that you told me the link can’t totally take you out of your human body, but there has to be some way to fully move you into Alias. There  _has_  to be. And I’m not giving up until we find it.”

Alias suddenly arched and shuddered with pain in his arms, shaking her head hard, but Optimus knew it wasn’t in negation of what he’d said. Even silenced as she was, he still sensed her screams. Not being able to spare her this suffering was almost unbearable. “I’m here. I’m here, Anna. We’ll get through this–all of it. I just got you back. I’m not losing you again,” he murmured, tightening his arms as her struggles increased. “I’m here. Focus on me. Stay with me.”

She yanked her hands free of his and tried to push his arms away. He grasped her wrists instead, fighting to hold her, and remembering what Cade had told him, Optimus thought of the decision he’d made just before her first flight. He’d been thinking about it ever since Ironhide had read him the riot act–no, if he was honest he’d been thinking about it for years–and all of the reasons that had held him back seemed utterly unimportant now.

“Anna, listen to me,” Optimus said fiercely. She was shaking her head frantically now and he had to pull his own head back to avoid being struck, but he didn’t stop talking. “You are my conjunx endura. Do you understand what that means? It means that there is nothing in this universe I won’t do for you and no sacrifice I won’t make to keep you. You promised me this morning that you would never leave me and I’m holding you to it. I’m not letting you go–I don’t care what it takes.  _I’m never letting you go._ ”

Her struggles didn’t slow and he wasn’t sure she was listening but he kept talking, praying that she could understand what he was saying. Her heels scraped long gashes in the metal floor. “This isn’t the end. I refuse to accept it. We haven’t had enough time, Anna. There’s so much we haven’t done yet, so much I want to show you. You are my conjunx endura and I owe it to you to show you what that means,” Optimus told her, his voice low and determined. Alias was still fighting hard, though, and she kicked out in an attempt to break free, but the way she’d positioned his legs around her didn’t allow it.

The instant it became clear that she couldn’t get away, her struggles became absolutely frenzied. Optimus recognized the panic. “No, stay with me, Anna. You don’t have to escape from me. Remember who’s holding you. Remember where you are. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you’re safe. You’re safe with me.” She writhed in his grasp and threw herself to the side. Rather than stopping her, he went with her and turned so he took the impact and caught her atop him. “Anna– _Alias_ –you’re not there anymore. You’re with me. I know it hurts and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but it’s going to be all right. I’ll  _make_  it all right. As Primus is my witness, I will make this all right again, and you know I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

Alias went rigid in his arms for the barest of instants. Then she grabbed his forearm tight, and it wasn’t to push him away. Optimus turned his other hand and interlaced their fingers again, knowing that she was with him again now. “That’s good. Just a little bit longer. That’s right. Hold onto me,” he praised, and even when another wave of agony hit her and she gripped his arm so hard that the metal plating of his forearm groaned and bent, he didn’t pull away. “Stay with me,” he whispered, ignoring the pain of his arm as she dug her fingers in. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. Stay with me.”

Suddenly she went absolutely limp. Optimus spun her in his arms, spark freezing with terror that she’d lost the battle to stay conscious, but she immediately wrapped her arms around him and tucked her head under his chin. And even though she was still shaking from head to toe with silent sobs, Optimus understood what it meant and felt absolutely light-headed with relief. The door opened and Wheeljack hurried back in. “They’re finished? Did it work?” Optimus asked, sparing the others a glance for the first time since this had started.

“They’re done,” Ratchet confirmed, but he wasn’t looking at his handheld. He was staring at Optimus with an absolutely stunned expression. “Prime, you… you said…”

“I know what I said,” Optimus interrupted as Wheeljack grabbed Ironhide and the two of them had a quick, hushed conversation. He wasn’t interested in justifying his decision to claim her as his conjunx endura. There was only one thing he cared about right now.  _“Did it work?”_

Ratchet just stared, still wide-eyed. The engineer was the one who actually answered, and if the medic had sounded shocked and borderline-disapproving, Wheeljack sounded just the opposite. “It did,” he said, and although he didn’t have a mouth, Optimus could hear the smile in his voice. “Her intracranial pressure is dropping even as we speak. And congratulations.”

“Yeah, it’s about damn time you said it, Optimus. Alias, my condolences, you’re stuck with him now,” Ironhide said, smiling his own approval, but he was already walking quickly to the door. “I’m going over. See you both in a little bit.”

Optimus nodded to acknowledge that, but his attention was still focused on Alias and he didn’t watch Ironhide leave. “Did you hear that?” he murmured to her. “It worked. It’s over. You made it.”

She nodded but didn’t lift her head. He didn’t press her, just lowered his legs and caressed her back in long, slow, soothing strokes, holding her only lightly now. “If you want to move, you can,” he told her softly, but she just shook her head and stayed right where she was. He didn’t mind at all. She took one of his hands and put it on the back of her head, pressing down hard. Optimus routed coolant to his fingers, chilling the spot in hopes that it would help ease the pain at least a little. She held his hand there as though it did.

Ratchet belatedly remembered himself and came over to kneel down beside them. “I’m going to check you over, Alias,” he said, not touching her yet. “You don’t have move or do anything. Are you ready?” Only after she nodded did he take out his scanner and first ran it around her head, then slid it down her spine. Then he looked at his handheld and nodded at the readout. “Good, good. You came through it fine, no damage on this end.”

“Thank you, Ratchet,” Optimus said, pushing the scanner away. Even with the warning, she had gone nearly rigid when the medic had touched her back.

Ratchet nodded and stepped back, understanding. “I’m going next door to check on things over there,” he told her gently. “You stay here with Optimus and don’t worry about anything. Take all the time you need. There’s nothing at all you need to do right now.”

“Do you want Wheeljack to reconnect your voice before they leave?” Optimus murmured as her trembling finally started to subside.

Alias thought about that for what seemed like a long time, but finally she nodded. Optimus sat up, bringing her with him. Wheeljack brought his tools over and knelt down beside them, and Optimus noticed that even though she kept her face hidden against his shoulder, Wheeljack made sure that he stayed in her line of vision. Her huddled position and the way she still held his chilled hand to the back of her head made his job a little difficult, but the engineer was nothing if not adaptable, and it took him less than a minute to finish. She gave a single, almost inaudible whimper when her vocals were back online but immediately choked it off and pressed harder against Optimus as though embarrassed that even that small sound had escaped.

Wheeljack met Prime’s gaze over her head. The sympathy in the engineer’s gaze was clear. “Do you want me to reconnect your cog, too?” Wheeljack asked her, his tone very gentle, but when Alias didn’t respond in any way, Optimus shook his head.

“Later,” he said. Even though Wheeljack was doing everything right, the sooner Optimus could get everyone away from her, the better. She was still so tense in his arms that he feared that the slightest thing could trigger another panic, and the way she’d muffled that tiny sound just hurt his spark. He wanted all of them to leave as fast as possible so she didn’t have to repress anything else. Now that she’d finally started letting him comfort her in her moments of weakness rather than trying to hide them from him, he wanted her to feel free to be as weak as she needed to be right now.

Wheeljack nodded. He started to stand up, but then he paused. “Alias, you are the one of the bravest people I’ve ever known, human or Autobot. It’s an honor to call you my friend,” he told her softly, briefly putting his hand on her shoulder and squeezing. Then he looked at Optimus again. “I’m going back with Ratchet and I’ll keep everyone out of here for as long as I can. It’s not a proper seclusion, but at least it’ll be something.”

“Thank you, Wheeljack,” Optimus said, and the engineer inclined his head before standing up.

“Come on, Ratchet,” Wheeljack said, taking the medic’s arm and steering him out the door. “Optimus has this covered. Let’s give them a minute and go next door so I can fill you in on what’s going on, what do you say?”

When the door closed behind them, Optimus closed his eyes and rested his cheek atop her head. “He’s right, you know,” he said after a few moments when he felt her body relax a tiny bit as she realized they were finally alone. “You are incredible.”

“Optimus, why did you do that?” she whispered. “Why now?”

Optimus knew exactly what she was talking about. “Because I love you,” he replied. “Because it’s been true for years and I should’ve said it a long time ago. Because everyone already knows what you are to me and because there is no reason good enough not to make it official.”

She finally lifted her head. “Optimus, I am  _dying_  in the other room! Isn’t that reason enough?”

“Do you think it would hurt any less to lose you if I hadn’t said it?” he returned, and caressed the back of her head so carefully. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. “I have enough regrets in my life, Anna. I refuse to allow missing my chance to claim you as my conjunx endura to become another one.”

She was silent for a long time. “You’re the most important person in my life too, you know,” Alias finally said, leaning forward so that her forehead rested against his. “So I guess that means you’re my conjunx endura, too.”

Optimus smiled in wonder as she claimed him right back. He was a little surprised that he could feel this much joy in the middle of such a horrific situation. “I wasn’t sure you’d even know what the term meant,” he murmured.

“I might’ve looked it up a while ago,” she replied, and he was relieved to see an answering smile on her face–even if it was small, it was there. “I looked up a lot of things when I first realized that I loved you. But you know, when I was a little girl and dreamed about getting married, this particular scenario somehow never crossed my mind.”

“It does lack romance, doesn’t it,” Optimus mused. Romance was something he’d never quite gotten the hang of, but then he remembered the way she’d looked at him when he’d told her that he thought she was far beyond beautiful just a little while ago. For her, and especially for this, he could certainly make an effort to put that look on her face again. He took her hand and held it over his spark, thinking of everything he knew about human weddings. Then he pulled back and met her gaze. “Anna Elias, also called Alias, I take you before Primus and all the Autobots as my wife and sparkmate, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, from this day forward, until the stars go out,” he vowed solemnly. “Isn’t that how it goes?”

“Close enough,” she whispered, gazing up at him with eyes full of wonder and love. “And I take you, Optimus Prime, to be my husband and sparkmate, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, from this day forward, until death do us part.”

“Not death,” Optimus corrected gently. “Death will not part us. I won’t allow it.”

Alias lost her smile completely at that. “You have a lot of power but that one might be beyond even you, big guy.” Then she squeezed his hand. “And I’m surprised you know human wedding vows.”

“I might have looked it up,” he replied softly. “A long time ago. I should’ve done this years ago. I wasted so much time. I can never tell you how sorry I am for that.”

She rested her head on his shoulder again. “The time I have left is measured in hours, Optimus. I refuse to spend any of it regretting the past.”

“You don’t know that.”

She sighed. “This stroke is going to kill me. It’s a fact,” she said when he tried to protest again. “I’m not going to waste any time on false hope, either. What we just did bought me a day, maybe a day and a half, but that’s all. The link will hold as long as I can stay awake, but after that… even if I live, my mind will be gone.  _I’ll_  be gone. This…” She waved a hand, indicating her Autobot body. “This is all I have left.”

He winced. “I refuse to accept that,” he said again, holding her tighter. When she started to speak again, he covered her lips with his fingers and didn’t let her. “This isn’t false hope, Anna, it’s just _hope._  If your human body can no longer sustain all that makes you  _you_ , there must be some way to make your link into Alias permanent. There has to be!” She closed her eyes tightly and he let his hand fall away. “I cannot lose you,” he said, voice raw. “I cannot lose you like this. Not now. Not when we’ve come so far.”

“If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.” She looked up, finally letting him see the depth of her fear. Voice choked with tears her Autobot body couldn’t shed, she clutched him tight and whispered, “I’m scared out of my mind, Optimus. I’ll try anything at this point. I don’t want to lose you either.”

He pressed his cheek to hers and hoped she couldn’t feel him shaking. “I won’t let you. We’ll come up with something. We’ll figure this out, I swear it,” he vowed, and then the door opened and Ratchet came back in. Optimus glared at him. “You know, most new sparkmates take at least a week of seclusion to reinforce their bond. You couldn’t give us ten minutes?”

“I gave you ten and a half. Under the circumstances, that’s generous. Don’t complain,” Ratchet replied, kneeling down beside them. He waved the scanner over her again, not touching her this time. “How are you feeling now, Alias?”

She laughed completely without humor. “Shaky, terrified, wired like hell from whatever you gave me, and my head feels like someone just drilled a hole in it,” she replied dryly. “Don’t expect me to say that I’m okay.”

“No one expects you to say that,” Ratchet said gently. “I have an update for you, if you want to hear it.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, sitting a little straighter and finally lowering Prime’s hand from the back of her head but not moving out of his embrace.

“The procedure was a success. Your intracranial pressure has dropped significantly and the risk of brain stem herniation is now low. The doctors are pleased with that,” Ratchet said, but his face remained so serious that Optimus knew there was bad news to follow. “Your vitals are still a problem, though, and I’m sure it’s at least partially because of what they just did. We’re having trouble stopping them from giving you pain medication, but so far Lennox and Epps have been able to convince them that you have an allergy to all forms of narcotics. They’ve obviously figured out the link between you and their human patient, but with your upper body concealed by the link machine, they haven’t yet identified you as the missing Dr. Elias.”

“That’s good, at least,” she said, although Optimus couldn’t care less about secrecy right now. He would shout her name from the rooftops if it helped them save her.

“Physically, they say you’re in critical and unstable condition,” Ratchet went on. “They are still attempting to get your blood pressure down, but most of all, they really want to move you out of the link machine. It’s gotten worse since we brought you over here–they found the healing injuries from your time with the Decepticons and they’re very suspicious. Making them do the trepanning without anesthesia didn’t help, either. If it hadn’t been such a dire emergency, I don’t think they’d have done it at all. They’re pushing very hard to take you away from us for independent treatment, enough that we’ve had to take some measures to prevent it.” He shifted his gaze to Optimus. “I know we needed them, Prime, but now that they’ve done this and told me what I need to do, I strongly recommend that we send them out of here as quickly as possible. We can’t take the risk of one of them moving her.”

“But then who will oversee her care?” Optimus asked, frowning.

Ratchet hesitated, seeming a bit confused by the question. “Optimus,” he said, “there isn’t going to be much to oversee. They’ve placed a drain that will keep the blood from building up again, and they’ve given her some medications to bring down her blood pressure and fight the swelling in her brain, but apart from treating any other seizures as they arise, there isn’t anything else to be done. I can monitor her vitals and administer any maintenance doses as needed until… well, until it can’t be maintained any longer.”

Optimus abruptly stood and paced across the lab. Much as he wanted to hold Alias, he had to move right now. He felt trapped, suffocated, overwhelmed by everyone repeatedly telling him that she was going to die, and no matter how many times he heard it, he  _refused to accept it_. “You’ll have figured out how to make the link permanent by the time we reach that point,” he said, his tone making it an order, not a question.

Ratchet looked helplessly between Prime and Alias. She got to her feet too and nodded at the medical officer. “I understand what you’re saying, Ratchet. Send them out as soon as they’ve stabilized me as much as they can. I’m not taking a chance on one of them getting overzealous and disrupting the link. I don’t want to lose a second of the time I have left,” she said, and Optimus spun around and slammed both fists into the wall.

“It doesn’t end this way!” he shouted, fear and rage making him shake. Fists still clenched, he turned and stalked back toward Ratchet, who backed away at his vehemence. “You’ve worked on this project for four years! You can’t tell me that in all that time, you haven’t thought up something to try, some kind of way to lock her into Alias! I know that was always the goal–you can’t tell me there’s nothing that can be done. You can’t give up–I  _order_ you not to give up!”

Ratchet started to answer but Alias beat him to it. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Optimus,” she said firmly, stepping in front of the medic. “None of this is his fault.”

Optimus stepped back, trying to get hold of his runaway emotions. She was right. Alias walked over and leaned against him, and Optimus immediately gathered her close.  _His sparkmate_ … it was incredible, unreal, and in all the times he’d imagined actually claiming her as his own, he’d never thought the joy of finally having what he’d always wanted would come with the terror of immediately losing it.

He held her for a moment before finally meeting Ratchet’s eyes again. The medical officer hated losing patients, always had, and would work himself into near-collapse in his desperation to save every single Autobot who came to him. Every patient he couldn’t save haunted him. Accusing him of giving up without even trying was out of line. “Forgive me, Ratchet,” he said hollowly, the words like stones. “I know you’re doing all you can.”

“I completely understand,” Ratchet replied more gently than Optimus thought he deserved. “No one expects you–either one of you–to just sit back and calmly accept this. And I promise you, we _aren’t_  giving up, none of us. Perceptor and Skyfire are reviewing everything we’ve learned during all the links and cross-referencing everything we know about human and Cybertronian brains right now, and Wheeljack just joined them because he knows more about how Alias works than the rest of us put together. I’m going to give them every instant of my time when I’m not treating Anna, and Alias, if you can, we want your input, too. We’re entertaining every suggestion. All of us are as determined to come up with a solution as you are, Optimus, I swear it.”

“Bridge personnel in from Australia if you think it will help,” Optimus said, not giving half a damn about the Energon shortage right now. “Grapple, First Aid, anyone you need. We’ll figure out the Energon rationing later. Do whatever it takes.”

Alias spoke without pulling away from him as Ratchet nodded. “Speaking of Energon, is there any word from Cade?”

Ratchet spread his hands. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve been a little busy with other things, as I’m sure you know, and it hasn’t really been that long. But I can ask Prowl for you–he and Inferno are monitoring the command center.”

Optimus looked down at her, brows drawing together. “Forget the Energon project. I would rather you spend your time working with the science team on the link right now.”

“I know. And I promise you, I will. But I need to give this information to Perceptor while I can, just in case. I know you don’t want to think about it,” she said when Optimus started to protest again, “but the truth of the matter is that Anna Elias is going to die. Whether my mind can stay on within Alias remains to be seen, and if I can’t stay with you, I want to at least give you this. I need to know that I’ve left you better off than I found you.”

Optimus wanted to argue. He really, truly wanted to shout out another denial, but looking into her eyes, he couldn’t. She was clinging to the promise of that computer and the information it held, and knowing that Cade was bringing it clearly comforted her. He couldn’t deny her any comfort or peace, not now. “Then do what you need to do. Just don’t let it interfere with finding a way to save you,” he finally said, and Alias nodded.

She smiled a little but her eyes were still very scared. “Believe me, Optimus, that’s my first priority, too. I’m in a lifeboat right now. I’m not going to pass up any chance that could get me safely to shore.”


	36. There Will Be Repercussions

Optimus followed Alias and Ratchet back to Wheeljack’s lab but stopped dead in the doorway, stunned at all the changes that had happened in such a short amount of time. The link table holding Anna’s human body was jam-packed with equipment he didn’t even recognize–things that beeped or buzzed, bags of fluids on poles, machines whose purposes he couldn’t guess. Wheeljack joined Ratchet and Perceptor at the head of the bed where they conferred over the various readouts there.

Even the machinery Optimus did recognize had changed. One end of the table itself had been raised so the head was about thirty degrees higher than the foot. The back of the link machine was completely open now, too. Exposed wires and circuitry surrounded the dark circular opening that held Anna. Only the top of her head was visible. Part of her hair had been shaved away and a clear tube disappeared beneath a thick bandage, draining dark red fluid into a collection container. Even the large emergency-stop button had a rough metal plate riveted over it.

And the human physicians hovered over her like bees around their queen while Lennox, Epps, and Andronov stood right at Anna’s bedside. The three NEST members were actually armed, conspicuously so, even after Optimus had decreed that their weapons would not be returned–and the way they held them was clearly a statement. Crosshairs and Ironhide stood on either side of the link table, and like the NEST team, their weapons were also prominently on display, and Skyfire seemed to be doing nothing but scrutinizing their every move. It was clear that no one on the medical team was pleased by these developments.

Optimus recalled that Ratchet had said that the humans had become so insistent about taking her out of the link that he’d taken measures to prevent it, but even with that warning, he was startled to realize just how drastically things had escalated.

Alias turned and looked back at him. For just an instant, he saw that this scene disturbed her as much as it did him, but then her expression smoothed and she gave him the smallest of reassuring smiles. “Come on, Optimus. It’s all right,” she said softly.

“Nothing about any of this is all right,” Optimus replied, but he finally entered the room.

One of the medics looked up when he came in. “Optimus,” she echoed Alias, rising to her feet. “You are Optimus Prime? You are in charge here?”

“Yes,” Optimus replied, even though he had never felt less in-charge of any situation in his very long life.

“I’m Major Hartfield. This is my trauma team,” she said, indicating the other humans. “And I demand to know what you’re doing to this woman immediately. Your refusal to stop this human experiment you’re running is hurting our chances of saving her, and may even be what’s killing her! Your people have prevented us from–”

“Stop right there,” Optimus interrupted. Of all the things he was not in the mood for right now, being lectured by this woman about something she had no hope of understanding was certainly high up on the list. “This woman is a volunteer in a classified scientific project who had an unforeseen medical emergency. She is not a  _human experiment_. Your implication is completely inappropriate.”

“And I already told them that,” Alias said in exasperation. She waved at the link table. “That so-called human experiment is  _me,_  you idiot. I volunteered for this, and the Autobots aren’t the ones telling you to continue it–I am!”

“So you say,” the major replied in the tones of one who has indeed had this conversation before but intends to keep having it until she received the answers she wanted. “We don’t have any idea what this machine does, so how are we to know if you’re telling the truth or not? There’s no way to prove that you’re really this woman. You could be anyone.”

Alias threw up her hands and Skyfire spoke up before Optimus could. “We’ve been over this repeatedly and it’s not important right now,” he said firmly.

“It is the  _most_ important thing right now!” Hartfield argued. She gestured angrily at Anna’s still body. “If she’s unable to make her own decisions, it falls to her medical team to make them in her stead. That’s  _us,_  the people who are trying to save her, not  _you,_  the ones who’ve got her hooked up to some machine that does God knows what and probably caused this to happen in the first place! You’re preventing us from doing everything we can to–”

Alias strode over to the table and bent down, getting right in her face. “I  _am_  making my own medical decisions! You just don’t like what you’re hearing because you want to haul me off and I won’t let you disconnect me!”

“Heart rate rising,” one of the other medics said. “Blood pressure, too.”

“See?” Alias snapped. “There’s your proof–that’s  _me_ and you’re pissing me off!”

Optimus came over and gently but firmly moved Alias away from the table, getting angry himself now. This situation was already hard enough without them badgering her, and with the stimulant playing havoc with her emotions, he was doubly determined to keep her calm. “If you persist in upsetting her, I will have you removed,” he warned Hartfield. “This behavior will not be tolerated. You will not be warned again.”

“And your insistence on covering up what you’ve done to this poor woman won’t be tolerated either,” she shot back. “She’s covered in very suspicious injuries that none of you will explain–”

“Stop it, all of you! We don’t fight at the patient’s bedside!” Ratchet snapped. He pointed at the major. “Alias is right. We’ve been over this. She stays exactly where she is and that’s by her choice, not ours. The wounds you keep bringing up were not caused by us, and she’s told you that repeatedly, too. Now can we please concentrate on her medical issues instead of debating your ridiculous accusations?”

Hartfield scowled. “There’s nothing else that we can do unless you let us move her. Since you won’t…” she said, disgusted. She pointed a finger at Alias. “Her death is on your head.”

“Since it’s  _my death_  and  _my head,_  I’m good with that,” Alias shot back. She was shaking under Prime’s hands, fine tremors running through her that could’ve been from the stimulant or could’ve been from anger. “It’s not your call to make. It’s mine _._  And if for some reason I can’t make it, it’s  _his._ ” She jerked her chin at Optimus. “Your wishes don’t even enter into it.”

Hartfield looked at one of her medics, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “You see why we’re worried. Are you doing what you want, or are you doing what these aliens want? Are you even allowed to say no?”

Alias bristled and Optimus grasped her elbows and steered her away from them, blocking her from their view. “Easy,” he murmured to her. Then he glanced over his shoulder and growled, “You were warned.”

The Autobots immediately took charge. “All right, we appreciate all you’ve done, but it’s time for you to leave. We’ll take over from here,” Ratchet said briskly as Crosshairs and Ironhide moved in and Skyfire put his hands on each side of Anna’s stretcher. His hands were so huge that they covered her entirely. Before the medics could do more than blink, the Autobots had completely blocked them from reaching her.

Ironhide activated his cannons, and even though he didn’t aim them at the humans, it was still intimidating as hell. “We will escort you out now,” he said, the words  _voluntarily or not_ just as clear as if he’d spoken them.

All four of the military physicians gaped up at Optimus as they were politely but firmly ushered away by NEST and the Autobots. Hartfield found her voice first. “You can’t do that! I demand that–”

“Demand all you want, it won’t change anything,” Ironhide said. “You’re done.”

“This is intolerable!” she protested, then jerked her arm away from Lennox. “Get your hands off me, Major–you don’t outrank me.”

“But I do,” Optimus said, his voice very quiet but hard as steel. He didn’t bother turning around–Alias still looked furious and desperately worried, and he was more concerned about that than anything else. “This base is sovereign Autobot territory. Your military has no jurisdiction here and your approval of our activities is not required.”

Hartfield kept trying to resist. “Autobot jurisdiction or not, this base sits on United States land,” she persisted. “We came here to help save a life, not to prolong what is clearly a dangerous experiment on a human being, especially one who’s obviously been brainwashed and tortured. If she’s an American citizen, that  _makes_ it our business–treating one of our citizens like this will not be tolerated. There will be repercussions!”

Optimus finally released Alias and focused all his attention of the human doctor. “She is not one of yours. She is one of ours, and you would be wise not to make threats you can’t take back, human.” If they wanted a fight, he was more than happy to give them one. Anna was an Autobot, no matter what body she wore, and more than that, she was  _his._  No one was going to take her away from him. “You can leave with our gratitude, or you can leave with our animosity, but you  _will_  leave.  _Now._ ”

“You really want to stop now,” Crosshairs interrupted when Hartfield opened her mouth to argue again. “You’re close to provoking him into something that I promise your superiors don’t want. Take our thanks and go. It’s the best way, believe me.”

“And remember that everything you’ve seen and done here today is classified above top secret under the NEST treaty. Discuss any of this with anyone and Gitmo will be the most pleasant of the possible outcomes for you. And it won’t change a damn thing anyway,” Lennox added, and Hartfield scowled again. “Do you really want to throw your career away picking a fight you can’t win?” Lennox held her gaze until she finally looked away in surrender.

“What about our gear?” she asked, but it was clear now that she was grasping at straws.

“I’ll take responsibility for it,” Lennox replied. “Or report it stolen if that makes you happier. Now let’s go, move out. We’ll return you to your base for debriefing and Andronov will accompany you just to ensure that no one  _accidentally_  makes any unfortunate comments that might stir up more trouble.”

When the medics finally left with Andronov, Ironhide, and Crosshairs, Alias growled and pounded a fist into her palm. “Argh, that woman! Do you know how much it sucks to be discussed like you’re not even present? And then to be called an  _experiment!_ ”

Ratchet glanced up. “Take it easy. You need to calm down as much as you can. You don’t have to deal with them anymore and we all know you’re not an experiment, okay?” he urged.

Optimus squeezed her shoulders. “They’re gone now,” he reassured to her. “And if they come back, I will  _gladly_  deal with them. They are nothing you need worry about.”

She nodded, but she couldn’t stop wringing her hands. “I’m trying, I promise. It’s just really hard right now. I feel like I pounded back sixteen espressos and chased them down with half a pound of sugar dissolved in Red Bull–and it’s only getting worse. What the hell did you even give me, Ratchet, and how long until it wears off?”

Ratchet shrugged apologetically. “Probably a few more hours,” he said. “But the effect should peak soon. I’m sorry you’re uncomfortable, but at least it’ll help you stay awake, right?”

“Falling asleep is the furthest thing from my mind right now, trust me. I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Alias replied with feeling. She held out her hands to show them how hard they were trembling. “You should probably keep me away from the machinery right now but I need to do  _something_ or I’m going to shake to pieces. Either give me a job or let me go outside and run about twenty marathons.”

Optimus took one of her hands and ran his other palm up and down her back soothingly. She was all but vibrating beside him, her fingers restless around his, bouncing on her toes. Lennox glanced at them, obviously surprised at this open display of affection, and Optimus ignored the curiosity in the man’s gaze. He was done hiding this.

“We’ve got the mechanical side of things handled,” Ratchet reassured Alias as he started connecting the humans’ machinery into Teletraan’s systems. “And you’ve got a much more important job anyway. You’re our energy specialist. If you think you’re able to concentrate, we really need you to help us make a plan to do to lock you into Alias permanently.”

Optimus closed his eyes briefly. The amount of relief that one sentence brought him was completely disproportionate, but it was the first time anyone had said anything that even remotely indicated that he wasn’t the only one clinging to that hope. “Yes, think about that. Think really, really hard,” he agreed, and Alias actually smiled.

“Oh, believe me, I am,” she assured him. “This is literally the fight of my life. I’m going to give it everything I have.”


	37. Quite Something To Behold

“And we do already have a few ideas. One thing we’re wondering about is experimenting–sorry, bad word choice–with the link power levels,” Skyfire said as he walked over to the large machine between the two tables. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that the more energy we pump into the link, the more present you feel in Alias. The only problem is that there’s a maximum your brain can physically take and we don’t know what that maximum level is.”

“Are you actually worrying about causing brain damage at this point?” Alias asked, staring at him with a mixture of disbelief and exasperation. “Have you looked at my brain scans lately, Skyfire? I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed–sailed, hit an iceberg, caught fire, and sank.”

“Well, yes, but we don’t want to totally fry your brain if we can help it,” Wheeljack replied, not looking up from his own screens. Perceptor pulled up the 3D model of her brain and pointed at the dim, slow-firing light present at her brain stem as Wheeljack continued. “If you study those scans, you’ll see that you’re still using part of it. True, it’s not much, but part of your mind is still embedded in your human brain. We don’t know what would happen to you if we try a power surge and it cuts that remnant off instead of moving it over, but our best guess is basically  _nothing good_.”

Alias sighed, looking at the model. “Okay, point taken, but if you think it’ll work, you officially have my permission to zap me so full of energy that sparks fly out my toes. At least this time it’ll be for a good reason,” she finally said, and Optimus frowned, not liking the reminder of her torture, especially after the humans’ accusations. He was still fighting down his own rage at the implication that he would ever harm her, much less  _torture_  her.

“What other ideas do you have?” he asked, wanting to move off that topic for both their sakes.

“Well, another thing we’ve been discussing is whether maintaining the link for as long as possible might weaken your connection to your human body,” Perceptor said. “The longest you’ve spent as Alias is about six hours, which isn’t really all that long, but when you came out that time, did you notice anything different about how you felt?”

“That was when Optimus and I talked to Starscream, right? Yes, I was exhausted after that link,” Alias answered thoughtfully. “But Ratchet said my power levels were low and that was why.”

Ratchet spoke up from beside the link table. “She’d only started at half-power and after everything she did that time–the testing, beating the hell out of Starscream, helping Prime with the interrogation–she was down to around 18% by then and approaching the automatic shut-down point.”

“Wait, she really did beat up Starscream?” Epps said, but no one acknowledged the interruption.

“I’m sure at least part of it was your power level,” Wheeljack said. “But we’re also hoping it might’ve been just a little bit harder for you to return back to your human body. We’re hoping that the longer you stay linked into Alias, the more secure the transfer will become.”

“So I’ll stay linked into Alias as long as possible before we do whatever we end up doing,” she replied, nodding. “That was always going to happen. What else?”

Wheeljack and Perceptor exchanged a look. “So far, we’ve only got one other idea. It was something we’d considered at the very beginning, but there was a reason that we didn’t mention it at that time,” Perceptor said after a moment. “Even now we are unsure if it’s a viable option. We cannot be certain whether it would work the way we want it to. There are variables involved that we cannot control. I’m not sure it’s a risk we should take, even now.”

Alias raised an eyebrow at him. “Riskier than death?”

Perceptor fidgeted a little under her stare. “Well, actually… yes.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never really believed in the  _fate worse than death_  thing, so assume that I am both willing and eager to take any risk whatsoever and spit it out,” she told him flatly.

The two looked at each other again, but when Wheeljack finally answered, he spoke not to her but to Optimus. “The Matrix,” he said at last. “We thought about asking you to use the Matrix.”

Prime’s hand reflexively tightened around hers. He saw the problem immediately. “That is definitely a last resort, and maybe not even then.”

“Wait, are you serious? This is something you would still hesitate to try even if the alternative is  _death?_ ” Alias asked, turning and looking at him disbelievingly. Optimus nodded reluctantly and she just stared for a long moment before finding her voice again. “Okay, I know that’s not something you’d say lightly, so I really need you to explain this to me. I don’t know much about the Matrix, so tell me everything, especially how could it help and what could go wrong. Help me understand and then let me decide whether to take the risk.”

The scientists stayed quiet, letting Optimus handle that question. He glanced at Epps and Lennox, hesitating. Both of them had seen the Matrix briefly when Optimus had used it to awaken Sentinel and again when it had revived him in the desert, but giving Alias the kind of answer she deserved would require a level of detail that he just wasn’t comfortable sharing with them. Much as he trusted them, some things simply weren’t theirs to know.

“This is not a conversation we can have here,” he finally said. When Alias started to protest, he squeezed her hand again. “I’m not putting you off. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. We’re just moving first. Come on–Wheeljack, Perceptor, you too. Ratchet?”

The medic shook his head. “Skyfire and I don’t leave this room right now. I couldn’t add anything the others couldn’t, anyway.”

Optimus nodded and led the group out, but he didn’t go next door into the empty lab this time. He wasn’t sure he would ever want to see the inside of that room again. Instead, he led them around the corner and toward the large command room, but he paused when he saw Ironhide and Crosshairs coming the other way. “Ironhide, give me a status update,” he ordered.

“They’re gone. The perimeter is secure. We made sure they got in the helicopter with Andronov and monitored them until they were out of range.”

Optimus nodded. “Good.”

But Ironhide wasn’t done. “After that I took a few liberties, Prime. Anticipating your orders, I sent Bee and Smokescreen to retrieve Cade’s daughter as a precaution,” he said, and Optimus nodded his approval of that. Tessa was as much an Autobot ally as her father. No one was certain exactly what those threatened  _repercussions_ would be, and Prime would be damned before he let Cade’s daughter get caught in the crossfire. “I’ve also got Teletraan scanning our airspace. Anyone comes within fifty miles of here, we’ll know about it. I’d like to get Skyfire airborne to keep an eye out, too.”

“Skyfire stays where he is. Ratchet needs him and that takes precedence,” Optimus said, shaking his head. “But when Drift returns, I want him out sweeping the perimeter. Make our readiness visible, Ironhide. I want them to think twice.”

Ironhide nodded. “Already on it, Prime. I’ve divided all available Autobots into two groups, either standing sentry or on patrol. The Australian base has been briefed and stands ready to back us up if necessary, and I’ve woken Metroplex and given him a full report, too.”

Optimus was impressed. He couldn’t think of a single thing Ironhide had overlooked. “Good work. You’ve done exactly what I would have ordered,” he said, clasping his shoulder briefly.

Ironhide smiled. “I’ve known you for a little while, you know.”

Alias looked completely taken aback by all of this. “You said you’ve woken Metroplex–what does that mean?”

“Metroplex isn’t just a base,” Optimus told her. “He’s the last surviving Autobot titan.”

“He doesn’t fight often, but when Metroplex takes the field, it’s all over,” Crosshairs said with satisfaction.

She stared at them in shock. “Are you telling me that this–all of this–” she gestured at the base around them, “–is an  _Autobot?_  We are standing inside an actual, living, transforming Autobot?”

Optimus nodded. “Yes. Metroplex chooses to stay in stasis most of the time–he is very, very old, and the amount of Energon he requires to transform is, obviously, significant. When he shifts into robot mode, he’s around not quite as tall as your Chrysler Building.” Her jaw dropped and he smiled–it probably wasn’t the kind of thought he should be having right now, but he couldn’t help thinking Alias was adorable when she was surprised. “He’s quite something to behold.”

“I can’t even imagine,” she said faintly. She glanced at Ironhide. “And you woke him up just because of me?”

“Absolutely.” Ironhide gave her a steely smile. “And he won’t mind at all, believe me. We have no expendables anymore. An attack on any Autobot is an attack on all Autobots, and every last Autobot will respond to that. But you occupy a pretty special place here even beyond that, Alias. When they made those accusations and tried to take you, they crossed a line they truly shouldn’t have. I’m not sure how familiar you are with our customs, but threatening someone’s sparkmate is exactly like threatening them.”

Crosshairs nodded. “And threatening our Prime pisses us off in a very special way,” he agreed. “If they’re stupid enough to come back and try to start something, we’ll all be ready for them.”

“I almost hope they do,” Prime growled, but when Alias looked up at him with clear concern, he swallowed the rest of his anger. Right now, she needed to be concentrating on being calm, not worrying about a possible fight. He turned to Crosshairs. “Who’s been watching our guest during all of this? I thought you were on guard duty with Sideswipe.”

“I was,” Crosshairs confirmed. “Sideswipe stayed put but I came running when Wheeljack sent out the call for backup. I know you wanted two Autobots on duty with Starscream at all times, but he coded that message priority one and I was close. I’ll take whatever sanctions you decree for abandoning my station, Prime.”

Prime shook his head. “No, Crosshairs. You acted to defend my sparkmate–of course there will be no sanctions. You did the right thing, but since that situation is secure, I’d like you to return to your post.” Crosshairs nodded and Optimus turned to the weapons specialist next. “Ironhide, I’d like you to go put yourself at Ratchet’s disposal. He might need things from the medical bay and I don’t want him leaving to get them himself. We will rejoin you there shortly.”

“You got it, Prime,” Ironhide said, and both of them left to follow his orders while Optimus resumed leading his group to the command room.

Prowl and Inferno glanced up when they entered the command room. “Is everything all right, Prime?” Prowl asked, and Optimus had to genuinely fight the urge to laugh at that question. He knew that if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. This wasn’t humor–it was close to hysteria. They were mobilizing for a possible war with the humans he’d sworn to defend while his sparkmate fought a losing battle for her life, and Prowl was seriously going to stand there and ask him if everything was  _all right?_

Optimus only replied when he was sure he could do so without the slightest trace of laughter in his voice. “There have been no new emergencies in the last five minutes, if that’s what you mean. We are only here because we needed a place away from the humans to tell Alias about the Matrix.”

Prowl stared at him. “Prime, I don’t want to tell you your business, but that’s not something any human has a right to know about.” He glanced at Alias. “No offense.”

Wheeljack patted his arm as he walked past. “Normally I’d agree with you, Prowl, but you’re not current on recent events. Things have rather significantly changed. Right now it’s relevant, and it’s not like she’s not going to find out anyway.”

The law officer didn’t seem reassured. “What’s changed and why would she find out anyway?”

“Alias is my conjunx endura,” Optimus replied, stopping and giving Prowl a look that could only be called challenging. If any Autobots were going to make a real protest about this, Prowl and Ultra Magnus topped the list. Both were sticklers for rules and traditions, but Optimus wasn’t in the mood for that kind of discussion right now. On his current list of priorities, their approval or lack thereof didn’t even make the last line.

Prowl’s jaw dropped and he started to speak, but when he saw the look on Prime’s face, he swallowed whatever objection he’d obviously been about to make. “Well, that’s… that’s quite a surprise,” Prowl finally said, and Inferno nodded, his own eyebrows sky-high. Then, as though he couldn’t help himself, Prowl frowned and said, “Optimus–”

“So, yeah. Congratulations!” Inferno interrupted, looking more than a little stunned himself although not quite as shocked as Prowl. He elbowed the police officer. “We’re happy for you. Right, Prowl?”

Optimus still hadn’t looked away. “Primus can judge me,” he said when Prowl looked like he was about to say something else. “Not you.”

Their gazes clashed in silence for a moment more, but finally Prowl shrugged and turned away. “We’ll make sure no one interrupts your meeting, Prime,” was all he said, and Optimus just nodded instead of answering.


	38. Remedial Matrix Class

Very conscious of Alias’ confusion, Prime led her and the others toward the conference table at the far side of the big room. He stood behind his usual chair at the head of the table as Wheeljack and Perceptor sat down, but Alias just shook her head when he offered her the chair nearest his. “I can’t be still right now,” she said apologetically, but her gaze was sharp as she held his. “Before we get this remedial Matrix class started, is there time to take a little conversational detour where you tell me what that was about? Because that’s the first I’ve known that Prowl has a problem with me. What did I do?”

This was another conversation Optimus wasn’t in the mood for, but surprisingly, Wheeljack spared him. “It’s only very slightly about you, Alias. Mostly it’s Prowl being obsessive about rules, as usual. Optimus is the first Prime to take a sparkmate,” the engineer explained, shrugging. “Some Autobots think that because no Prime ever  _has_ , that means no Prime ever  _can._  But most of us think that’s a stupid rule–if it’s even a rule in the first place–and it’s about time Optimus broke it.”

Perceptor nodded. “And any Autobot who’s honestly surprised by this really hasn’t been paying attention. We’ve all known it was coming since before you left three years ago.”

Optimus glanced at Alias and found her frowning, clearly concerned, but again, Wheeljack spoke before Optimus could. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. You two couldn’t be any more forged for each other if you tried. We really  _are_ happy for you and Prowl will come around once he sees that the world doesn’t end over it, promise. Let’s concentrate on why we came over here in the first place, okay?”

Alias looked up at Optimus, still not fully reassured. “I never wanted to cause trouble for you.”

“You’re not. Prowl’s opinion of some rule that might not even exist is absolutely the least of my worries,” Optimus said, squeezing her hand. “And even if Primus himself personally told me he objected, I would change nothing. This decision is not negotiable. Neither of us are going anywhere, remember?”

She held his steady gaze for a moment, then finally nodded. “Until the stars go out,” she finally whispered, and he smiled.

“That’s right,” he agreed firmly.

Alias leaned against him for a moment before releasing his hand and starting to pace, her nervous energy getting the best of her again. “I don’t really know anything about the Matrix except that it’s something carried by the Prime,” she said, getting back on topic. “So how about you start with the basics and then tell me how it can help?”

Optimus drummed his fingers on the back of his chair, thinking of where to start.  _The basics_  of the Matrix covered quite a lot. “The Matrix is far more than a badge of office. It is one of the oldest and most powerful Cybertronian artifacts that we still possess,” he said after a moment. He opened his chest armor and removed it from its place beneath his spark–he knew she’d seen it once before when she’d performed the repairs that saved his life, but he hadn’t explained what it was then, and he wanted her to see it now. Wheeljack and Perceptor stared at it with just as much fascination as Alias did, and even Prowl and Inferno glanced over. It was held in reverence by all Cybertronians, not only the Autobots. “We will give you an overview of what all Autobots know about it, but some of its secrets, I cannot share even with you.”

Alias came over and studied the glowing artifact. “It looks like it’s alive,” she said, skimming a fingertip a few inches above the Matrix’s surface, but she very carefully didn’t touch it. She bent closer. “Is–is that a spark inside of it?”

“That’s not a spark,” Perceptor told her. “Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it’s an echo of the largest spark there is.”

“But we need to go back a little bit further to fully explain. Cybertron was meant to be ruled by two equal powers,” Optimus told her. “The Lord High Protector who commanded the military–the position once held by Megatron–and the Prime and was elected by the Senate from a group of candidates to carry the Matrix and serve as a civil and spiritual leader. These two leaders were meant to balance each other and work in concert to carry out the laws passed by the Senate.”

Alias looked up sharply. “Wait, wait, whoa, back up.  _Spiritual_  leader?”

Optimus watched her a bit nervously–he should’ve known he couldn’t sneak that one past her. Still, as Wheeljack had told Prowl, she was going to find out about all of this eventually. “The Matrix is a link to Primus, the one who began all life on Cybertron,” he confirmed. “The glow you see at its heart is a conduit to his power. The Matrix is more than the mark of a Prime–it is this piece of Primus’ power that makesits holder  _into_  a Prime.” He hesitated, then decided to tell her the rest of it. “And you should probably also know that I was not elected by the Senate–I never sought this position. It was Megatron who was elected to receive the Matrix, combining Prime and Protector in one, but the Matrix rejected him and chose me directly instead. It is one of the many reasons he hates me so.”

Alias’ jaw dropped, her eyes wide and stunned. “Are you serious right now?”

Wheeljack winked. “You thought you married the president, but you kind of married the Pope,” he teased, but she didn’t laugh.

Optimus held her gaze and finally nodded, gauging her reaction to all of this. Years ago, they’d discussed human religions, and he knew that she ascribed to none of them–in fact, she blamed religion for much of humanity’s wars and suffering. That was at least partially why he hadn’t told her this before now. “I am no Pope–I have never emphasized that part of my role–but Wheeljack is technically correct. I stand as the bridge between Cybertronians and Primus. But Alias, our religion is not like any human faith,” he told her, not wanting her to put him in the same category as the corrupt human religious leaders she so despised. “It’s not an esoteric belief in some mysterious, distant unseen. Primus physically exists. His alt-mode is _Cybertron_. We have walked on his surface. Some of us have been privileged to actually speak to him.”

She passed a shaking hand over her face. “And here I thought a transforming  _base_  was hard to believe,” she whispered. Then Alias stared through her fingers at Optimus for a long moment where he couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking before she finally dropped her hand and spoke again. “Okay, Optimus, that’s… that’s actually pretty damn shocking, and you and I are going to have a nice long chat about this and any other huge secrets you might have forgotten to mention later, but maybe right now isn’t the best time,” she murmured, taking a step back from him and the Matrix.

Optimus reached out and caught her hand before she could move too far. “I haven’t changed,” he said quietly, not liking the new way she had just looked at him. It reminded him unpleasantly of how she’d looked at him when the stroke had first hit, like she didn’t have the slightest idea who he was. “I am exactly who I have always been. We will discuss anything you wish, whenever you wish, but until then, please remember that you  _know_  me. All right?”

She squeezed his hand and found a smile for him. “You look so worried. I’m not upset, Optimus, I’m just a little… no, I’m a  _lot_ blown away, but I’m also feeling a lot of pain from two different bodies and I’m very scared and more than a little bit high and I’m freaking out about so many things right now that I can’t concentrate on giving this the level of freak-out it really deserves. But you just said that even if Primus himself objected to us being together, you’d still choose me, and at the time I didn’t even know that he was real, much less that you’re his favorite, so that balances out a whole lot.”

Optimus shifted a bit uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t say that I’m his favorite–”

“Oh, I think the rest of us would,” Wheeljack interrupted, and Alias laughed for a moment before meeting Prime’s eyes again.

“Don’t worry, Optimus,” she told him, squeezing his hand again. “It’s just that I usually forget how vastly different our lives are. Getting a reminder like this… well. It’s just unexpected, that’s all. I’m going to have to find a way to really shock you in return.”

Optimus nodded, relieved that she was at least able to joke about it. “Please don’t,” he replied seriously. “You have me on the edge of a nervous breakdown already.”

Alias laughed again. “Me first, big guy.” Then she released his hand and resumed her pacing. “I know that if you had the power to pull some kind of miracle cure and fix this, you’d already have done it, so as fascinating as all of this is, how does any of it help with my situation?”

“Before we get to that, you need to know one other piece of background information. There is one way that new human life is created. But there are two ways that Cybertronian life can come to be,” Optimus said, explaining as carefully as he could. That religion discussion had been tricky enough. He didn’t want any misunderstandings about this part. “Those whose sparks arose spontaneously from Primus are said to be  _forged_. Those sparks would be found in wild places on Cybertron called hot spots. They were gathered with much ceremony along with the raw materials which surrounded them, then guarded and carefully nurtured to maturity. No one could predict what kind of alt-modes they would take. They would change spontaneously into their final forms when they fully matured.”

Alias nodded, showing that she was following, and Optimus continued. “But back in the time of Nova Prime, hot spots of naturally occurring sparks became rarer and rarer. Nova’s military expansion through the galaxy meant that we were suffering losses far beyond what naturally forged Transformers could replace. He discovered that the Matrix could be used to infuse life into pre-built bodies, just as Wheeljack and the others built Alias for you, and he instructed his scientists to fill the ranks that way. Those built by engineers and brought to life with the Matrix were said to be  _constructed cold_. They tried to hide what they were doing in various ways, but the truth eventually came out, as it always does.”

Perceptor leaned forward. “It was a very controversial practice. There were riots, murders. There was much prejudice against cold constructed Cybertronians. It was seen by some as a form of slavery to create a life that had no choice what form it would take. Quite a few held the view that they were unnatural, substandard. And many in the Senate said that they were abominations, that if Primus had intended them to live, he would’ve forged them himself.”

Optimus shook his head at that. “Personally, I have never seen the least bit of difference between them. How inferior can they be when no one can tell the difference unless they are told? Forged or constructed cold, the life force comes from Primus either way. They are no less sentient, their sparks no less worthy of respect.”

Alias nodded slowly. “So you’re saying that I’m constructed cold,” she said, “but that that’s okay. Yes?”

“Well, no, actually,” Wheeljack spoke up then. “One term that used to be thrown around was MTO–it stood for  _made-to-order._  It’s a pretty damn offensive thing to call anyone, but it is fairly accurate. Cold constructed bots were made specifically to fill a need. Rather than nurturing a body to fit its spark, cold construction forced the spark to fit the body. Those Cybertonians had no say in their form or function. You understand?” When she nodded, he went on. “Well, we did build Alias, but much of the actual design was a collaboration with you. We also didn’t imprint you with an alt-mode–that choice was yours. So while you could technically say that Alias was made to order, she was made to  _your_  order, and that’s a first.”

Perceptor nodded. “And the most important difference for this discussion is that you were born human. Your spark doesn’t arise from Primus at all. We don’t have a term for what you are.”

Alias rubbed the back of her neck. “So there’s two kinds of Transformers but I’m neither, and I am not understanding how this circles back around to the Matrix possibly helping me here.”

“We’re coming to that.” Optimus sat down and returned the Matrix to its place within his chest. “The Matrix can do more than give new life to an empty shell. It can also restore the life of a fallen Transformer, if Primus wills it,” he said as his armor closed over it again. “It has done so for me, and for others as well.”

Alias was starting to look completely overwhelmed. “Adding  _when the hell did you die_  to the roster of things we will definitely be discussing later–”

“Take a day, get the full list,” Wheeljack muttered, and Prime shot him a glare.

“–but why isn’t this the perfect solution?” she finished as though she hadn’t heard him.

“Because you are not a fallen Transformer. You are something that has never been before,” Perceptor said. “And therein lies the problem.”

Wheeljack spread his hands. “Despite the minor differences I just told you about, we built your body just like we would have constructed a new bot cold. The Matrix gives bodies like that new life. _New_  life, Alias.”

“Alias would certainly live, but it might not be as you.” Optimus clenched his hands together on the table, trying not to imagine how horrible it would be to see her body alive and whole but to know that his sparkmate was gone. “And I do not know if I could bear that.”

Alias finally pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. “Okay, I get it now. Worse than death. I definitely don’t want Alias walking around with someone else’s spark running her. The Matrix is a last resort.” She sighed and covered Prime’s hands with one of her own. “When you said nothing’s ever easy, Optimus, you really weren’t lying.”

“If it comes down to the wire and we don’t have a better plan, we can consider it,” Optimus said, partially because he couldn’t bring himself to withdraw any options from the table right now, but also because it might be a genuine solution. Perceptor had spoken of variables they couldn’t control. No one, not even a Prime, could ever predict what Primus would do. He might have mercy and spare her… but then again, he might truly have never intended his Primes to have a conjunx endura at all. It was a chance Optimus didn’t quite dare to take. “But it would certainly be a last resort.”

Alias sighed and suddenly jumped up again. “Can’t sit still,” she groaned, pacing away from the table again and rubbing her arms. “God, I know Ratchet wants me to relax and think calm thoughts but it feels like my skin’s trying to jump right off my bones. Why does anyone ever take drugs if they make you feel like this? It’s  _awful._  Remind me to never, ever let him give me a shot of whatever the hell that was ever again, will you?”

Optimus stood again, too. She was clearly suffering and he could hardly stand it. “What can I do?”

She paced back over to him and hugged him hard. “Hold me together. I’m falling apart,” she whispered. Optimus wrapped his arms around her and was immediately alarmed by how much she was shaking. “Harder,” she begged, and he tightened his grip as much as he dared while she pressed against him.

“We’ve got to do something,” Optimus said, looking over her head at Perceptor. “This can’t be good for her.”

Wheeljack spoke up before Perceptor could answer. “Let’s give her a dose of Energon. I think it’ll help.”

Optimus glanced at him, surprised at the suggestion. “Energon?”

He nodded and Perceptor joined in. “Actually, Prime, it makes sense,” Perceptor said. “I believe that humans will occasionally imbibe a small dose of alcohol to steady their nerves in stressful situations. Energon can have the same mildly sedative effect and if given in moderation, it shouldn’t intoxicate her enough to be worrisome.”

Alias nodded immediately against his shoulder. “Good plan. I’ve never wanted a drink so bad in my life. Screw moderation, make it a triple, and seriously intoxicate me.”

“Let’s just clear it with Ratchet first,” Optimus said, already leading her toward the door without removing his arm from around her. Prowl glanced over and Optimus ignored his disapproval. “But if there’s any chance that it could help, I’m in favor of trying it.”

“And anyway, the automatic shutdown kicks in at 15% power. We don’t want her to get anywhere close to that,” Wheeljack added as they left the control room.

“Why hasn’t that automatic shutdown been disabled?” Optimus demanded, completely shocked. Were they absolutely insane? “Nothing like that should be in place right now, Wheeljack!”

The engineer nodded. “I understand, Prime, but it’s hardwired in. The only way to disable it is to physically go into her head.”

Alias stopped dead in her tracks. She pushed Prime’s arm away and backed a step away from all of them. “Oh,  _hell_  no. You stay the hell away from my head,” Alias said, and the look on her face said that if her cog was active, she’d already be in battle-mode. “I  _will_ fight you. You too, Optimus–if you let them open my head again, I’ll even fight you, and I won’t forgive you for it. I’m not kidding.”

Wheeljack backed up and held up his hands in clear surrender. “Whoa, hey, you don’t need to give me the Starscream treatment. Not gonna touch you,” he promised.

Optimus also spread his hands. She’d been through far too much today and the thought of this was clearly one thing too many. “No one is going to do anything to you that you don’t approve first, and certainly not on my orders,” he said softly. She stared hard at him for a long moment before finally nodding and rubbing the back of her neck. Optimus cautiously reached out and took her other hand, but not so tightly that she couldn’t pull away with a minimum of effort.

She closed her eyes for a moment and finally squeezed Prime’s hand. He breathed a silent sigh of relief that the imminent panic attack had been averted. “Sorry, Wheeljack,” Alias said, looking back at the engineer. “Whatever the hell Ratchet gave me has me really edgy. I want to think about everything you just told me but my body can’t decide if it wants to fight or run or scream–actually all three sound like viable options. Followed up by going completely bugfuck  _insane._ ”

He waved her apology away. “I can’t imagine how much what they just did sucked. If I were in your shoes, I’d have reacted the same way to the suggestion that we do it again. I swear I won’t do anything to you without asking first, okay?” She nodded and he winked at her. “Now it’s your turn to promise you won’t slam my face into the floor,” he prompted, and she laughed.

“You’re asking a lot. The day’s still young,” she replied, and the engineer groaned.


	39. Ratchet Lays Down the Law

Perceptor picked up the conversation again as they resumed walking toward his lab. “We’ll just check her power levels when we get to the lab and see how much Energon she needs. The possibility of overcharging her is far more likely than any risk of hitting the automatic shutdown, and we certainly want to avoid that.”

When Wheeljack saw the worried look still on Prime’s face, he added, “She truly shouldn’t be anywhere near that level, Optimus. She was still above 85% before Ratchet and I gave her first aid earlier–

Optimus was startled to hear that. “Really? Even after the missile?” When he’d been hit with one of those AT missiles, he’d bled out a significant amount of Energon. That, along with the shrapnel preventing them from transforming, was one of the ways those damn things disabled Cybertronians.

Wheeljack nodded. “Yeah, she lost hardly any Energon at all. Her control over her Energon flow has become pretty damn impressive.” He gave Alias an admiring look. “I’m just thinking that we don’t know how much energy you used during that procedure and this stimulant is going to make you burn through it faster than usual, too. All of this is just a precaution, that’s all.”

Ratchet didn’t even bother looking up from his screens when they entered and told him and Skyfire about Wheeljack’s suggestion. “Yes, good plan, give her a dose. It’ll keep her power levels up if nothing else. Start with a small amount so we can titrate up if we need to. If it minimizes her symptoms, we can add it directly into the stimulant next time around.”

“Oh, no, you are never, ever,  _ever_  giving me this crap again,” Alias protested immediately as Perceptor left to get the Energon.

Ratchet directed Epps to adjust one of her IV pumps. “Your protest is duly noted and ignored. I’ll give you whatever I need to in order to keep you alive until we solve this. I’d rather you be uncomfortable than brain-dead.”

For a moment, all she could do was blink at him. “Well, gee, Ratchet, when you put it that way suddenly I’m loving it,” she said dryly. “Can we at least agree to cut down the dose?”

“No. I don’t work that way. Sometimes things happen fast and I don’t have time to justify every move I make. If it’s an emergency, I’m going to do what I think needs done when it needs done, and I’d rather ask for your forgiveness later than watch you die while I wait for your permission.” He finally looked up and gave her an unyielding look that all the Autobots were familiar with. “I’m either your medic or I’m not, Alias. If I am, then you don’t get a vote. You either trust me to do whatever I think it takes to save you, or you don’t. That’s how it works around here.”

“And now you know why he’s so used to dodging weapons,” Wheeljack told her sardonically as Alias stared, open-mouthed. “His bedside manner is outstanding, isn’t it?”

Optimus shrugged helplessly when Alias glanced up at him as though asking whose side he was on here. “In these matters, he outranks even me,” he said. He’d seen the medic in this take-no-prisoners kind of mood before and found it comforting, but he understood why she was so taken aback. This was certainly not how human physicians worked. Giving her what reassurance he could, he quietly added, “I will step in if you truly cannot agree to a treatment, but I urge you to trust in Ratchet’s judgment. I would put your life in no other hands.”

Alias sighed but finally nodded. “Then I guess you’re the boss, Ratchet. I do trust you. But I don’t promise not to bitch at you if you do give me this crap again.”

“Everyone bitches at me, but you know what? They’re alive to do it,” Ratchet replied, and there was really no arguing with that.

Perceptor returned holding a glass cube full of glowing pink fluid–Energon in its liquid state. He poured about a quarter of it into a smaller container and handed it to her. “Bottoms up.”

Alias took it, using both hands so she wouldn’t accidentally slosh it out, but she hesitated instead of drinking it down. “As long as I’ve studied Energon, you wouldn’t think I’d be nervous about this, but I am. Do you know how many times I’ve seen this stuff explode?”

Optimus smiled reassuringly. “You’ll be fine, I promise.”

She still didn’t raise it to her lips. “Am I drinking alone? A girl could get a reputation like that.”

“We don’t need it. We all charged last night,” Wheeljack said, and Perceptor nodded.

“You didn’t. You stayed awake,” she said, looking at Optimus, but he shook his head.

“I don’t need any,” he replied, although that wasn’t quite true. Their shortage meant that Ratchet had instituted a strict rationing schedule–each Autobot received a full dose of Energon once weekly and relied on charging in between. In fact, Optimus had skipped his last two doses since the Matrix gave him an extra boost at all times, and he’d already decided to hold his current ration in reserve to run the ground-bridge. But none of that was anything she had to worry about. “Go ahead, Alias. If you’re worried about side effects, don’t. There’s not enough there to actually intoxicate you.”

Alias finally nodded and raised the glass. “Okay, well, here goes nothing,” she said, and drank it down. She made a startled face. “Wow, that’s weird. There’s no flavor at all–even water tastes of _something_. I’ve never encountered anything that’s truly tasteless before.” Then she stopped as if thinking of something else. “Wait. Is taste even a thing for you?”

Optimus chuckled at the question. “Yes, we can taste things,” he replied as the rest of them grinned, too.

“Those of us with mouths, anyway. Sideswipe mixes all sorts of things in his Energon ration,” Wheeljack told her. “Says he wants to open a bar when the shortage is over. I’ve obviously never tried any of his concoctions, but I’ve heard the others say they’re actually pretty good. We could get him to mix up your next shot.”

“Then I’ll have to get busy on making lots of Energon for him to practice with,” she said, handing the cup back to him. “Because God knows that stuff needs some serious help.”

Ratchet came over as Wheeljack took the empty cup away. “Hold out your hands,” he told her, and she did so. Both were still shaking pretty badly. He waited, just watching, until Optimus started to wonder what he was looking for, but after about half a minute, the Energon hit her system. Her hands didn’t completely stop trembling but they steadied noticeably. Ratchet nodded, looking pleased. “Ahh, there we go. How do you feel now?”

Alias closed her eyes and leaned against the empty assembly table. “A little better,” she said, and Optimus heard the relief in her voice. “Maybe instead of twenty marathons, I could just run four or five. And all this–” she gestured at her wounded side, “–hurts a little less.”

Ratchet patted her arm and then rejoined Epps and Lennox at the link table. “Try that for a little while and let me know how it goes. If this didn’t calm you enough, we can give you more. We don’t want to go too far the wrong way because we’re obviously trying not to sedate you, but buzzing around like you have been isn’t ideal, either. We are still working on lowering your pulse and blood pressure, after all. We need to find a dose that will put you somewhere in the middle, so don’t hesitate to speak up if this isn’t it.”

Alias nodded. “Will do. This is definitely an improvement. I’m still pretty wired, honestly, but it doesn’t feel like my skin’s trying to leave the room without me anymore and I think I can deal with this.”

Optimus could see the difference, too. Her body felt much steadier beside him when he came over and rested a hand on the small of her back. “How much of what you’re feeling is the stimulant and how much is the situation, do you think?” he asked, and she shrugged.

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? But I think if you gave me enough Energon to make me quit worrying, you’d have to peel me off the floor. I’m still very, very scared.”

The door slid open as she spoke and Drift, Cade, and Ishihara entered. “Here’s one less thing to worry about,” Cade said, holding up a slim black laptop, and Alias sighed with relief.

“Oh God, thank you so, so much. Did you have any trouble getting it?” she asked, coming over and kneeling down to take it from him. It was tiny in her huge hand and she turned it over very carefully, examining it from every angle. “It doesn’t look like it’s been tampered with.”

Cade shook his head. “We had no trouble at all, thankfully. Everything went exactly as you described and Drift said we weren’t followed. I took it out of the safe myself and no one but me has touched it. Oh, and here,” he added, removing her ring from the chain around his neck and holding it out to her. “Safe and sound, as promised.”

She smiled gratefully but didn’t take it. “Thanks, Cade, but if you don’t mind putting it back on me, I’d appreciate it. Even though I can’t feel it, knowing it’s not on my finger is bothering me,” she said instead, and he nodded and followed Ishihara up the catwalk onto the link table.

“But that’s good, right? That means you didn’t feel the rest of it?” he asked as he went up the stairs.

Alias snorted. “Oh, I wish.”

He winced for her and changed the subject. “Did I miss anything important while we were gone?” Cade asked, lifting her limp hand and sliding the ring back in place.

Wheeljack laughed. “Oh, not much. Well, that is unless you count a long-overdue conjunx endura declaration, or the Air Force doctors trying to start a war, or Optimus nearly giving them one but settling for having them escorted off the base under guard instead, or Ironhide mobilizing Metroplex and every spare Autobot just in case they come back and try to start something. But other than that? No, you didn’t miss a thing,” he replied, and Cade stared at him, jaw dropping. “By the way, Bee and Smokescreen should be arriving with your daughter pretty soon, too.”

It took him several seconds to find his voice. “Wait,  _what?_ ” he said, stunned. “Care to elaborate on that?”

“Which part?” Alias asked, and Optimus was relieved to see her actually smiling at his reaction.

Cade waved a hand as if to encompass all of it. “Easiest part first–Tessa’s on her way?”

Ironhide nodded. “Wheeljack wasn’t kidding about any of that. We’re not sure what’s going to happen and we don’t leave our friends exposed when there’s a chance of danger.”

“Thank you,” Cade replied, looking both alarmed that the Autobots were acting like war was an actual possibility, but reassured that they’d thought of his daughter’s safety immediately. Ironhide nodded to acknowledge his thanks. Then Cade turned to glance at Optimus and Alias as if remembering the very first thing Wheeljack had said before giving the engineer a confused look. “Wait a second–you said a conjunx endura declaration, but I thought you guys told me that Primes don’t do that.”

“This one does,” Optimus confirmed, wondering how many times he was going to have to have this conversation, and also wondering when his Autobots had explained this to Cade because he clearly understood exactly what they were talking about.

“I never told you that,” Wheeljack replied, sounding smug. “I’ve always said he would.”

“And now you’re saying  _I told you so_  to anyone who’ll listen,” Ratchet muttered.

“Well, I did,” Wheeljack said, and if he had a mouth, he would definitely have been grinning.

Cade was grinning enough for both of them. “Well, congratulations! I hate that I missed it.”

Drift gave them one of his rare smiles as Optimus nodded to accept Cade’s congratulations. “May Primus watch over you. It’s about time, too. We have all been wondering what was taking you so long,” he added, and Ironhide snorted.

“That’s exactly what I told him,” the warrior agreed.

Optimus rolled his eyes. “So nice to know that it’s been such a popular conversational topic,” he grumbled, but he was only feigning displeasure. Every positive reaction he received went a long way toward easing his mind, especially after Prowl.

“Popular, hell,” Ironhide said, grinning. “Sideswipe’s been running a betting pool since about two days after she got here. Someone’s winning a week’s supply of Energon and dammit, it ain’t me.” Optimus groaned as the others laughed.

“I disapprove of using Energon like that,” Ratchet said, and Ironhide elbowed him.

“You’re just mad that it ain’t you, either. Don’t pretend you didn’t bet,” he said, and laughed at the sour look the medic sent him.

“I get the feeling we’re missing something kind of big here. Anyone want to tell us what that declaration thing means?” Lennox asked as he, Ishihara, and Epps looked from face to face, lost.

Ironhide gave them a vicious smile. “In human terms, it means that you idiots shot Optimus Prime’s wife, so you might want to be very polite to Alias for the foreseeable future.”

Epps gaped at them. “You’re  _joking_.”

Optimus shook his head. “It’s not a joking matter,” he replied. “Our term is conjunx endura or sparkmate, not spouse, but it’s basically the same concept as your human marriages. And yes, Alias–Anna Elias–is my sparkmate.” And repeating it still gave him a thrill.

Lennox’s jaw was practically on the floor. He looked like he might actually pass out. “Oh, shit,” he gasped, leaning against the railing and putting a hand to his chest as if to steady his heart. “Oh shit, Optimus, I am so, so sorry, please don’t kill me.”

Optimus put his arm around Alias’ waist when she stood up. “And you’re still apologizing to me when it’s her forgiveness you really need.”

Lennox immediately looked at Alias. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am–we are. We all are. Sorry, I mean. We’re really, really sorry, and I can guarantee that it won’t happen again.” Then he turned to Optimus again. “But I’m a married man, too, Optimus, and I know what I’d do to anyone who hurt my wife. You say it’s her forgiveness I need, but I think I need yours, too.”

He couldn’t argue that. “Then let’s just say that your helpfulness in the last few hours has worked in your favor,” Prime replied, and the soldier nodded, clearly relieved.

But then Lennox bit his lip, looking from Anna’s still body to Alias’ torn and lacerated armor and back again. He rubbed his forehead and said, “If what we did caused this–”

“Your little weapons malfunction probably hurried it along, but it would’ve happened anyway,” Ratchet interrupted him. “The damaged blood vessel was already there. It was just a matter of time. At least this way it happened while she was Alias, and that means we have a chance to save her. If she hadn’t been linked in when that stroke hit, there would be no hope at all.”

“So in a way, you did me a favor by shooting me,” Alias said with the ghost of a smile. “But please don’t do me another one. That really hurt.”

Lennox nodded. “You did us a favor by not stepping on us, so maybe we’re even?”

“And now I’m curious about this near-war thing,” Cade said as Alias inclined her head in agreement. “What is that about?”

“Oh, that idiotic woman was seriously begging for a fight,” Ironhide said, scowling.

“And she can have it any time she wants,” Optimus grumbled, still angry about the torture accusations, and Alias leaned against him. Just feeling her against him, solid and alive and present, was enough to calm him somewhat. “The only thing that stayed my hand is that she really believed she was looking after Anna’s best interests, but the way she went about it…”

“They misunderstood where my old bruises and injuries came from and accused Optimus and Ratchet of brainwashing and torturing me until I agreed to let them run all kinds of screwed-up experiments on me,” she explained when Prime’s voice trailed off into a growl.

Cade’s jaw dropped. “Are they completely  _insane?_  Autobots don’t do that kind of crap!”

She nodded. “You’re preaching to the choir, Cade. I know that and you know that, but these idiots had drunk the Battle of Chicago kool-aid and were ready to believe anything. They didn’t want to listen to reason and things were getting pretty heated, so Optimus kicked ’em out.”

“Wait, are we already done talking about the whole  _Optimus Prime got married_ thing?” Epps asked, staring at Cade. “Seriously, dude, Autobots are marrying humans and you asked one question and that’s it?”

Cade raised an eyebrow. “It was the only important question. What, you have more?”

Ishihara was only a shade less shocked than her teammate as she also looked at the two Autobots. “But you’re a human and a giant robot! How do you even… how does that work?”

“Wow, that was personal,” Wheeljack said before Optimus or Alias even had a chance to speak, and that was good because Optimus had no clue how to respond to that. “Do we ask you humans that kind of thing?”

She blushed. “I’m sorry, I just meant… well, just with the size difference, I don’t understand how… well, you know,” she finished lamely.

“It was clear what you meant. What  _I_  meant was how is it your business?” Wheeljack asked, and Optimus could almost laugh at the way the engineer was jumping in to defend him and Alias.

Ishihara was sputtering now, bright red, and Optimus raised an eyebrow. “Your reaction is riding that fine line between amusing and offensive. Is this really so difficult for you to accept?”

“And as a cyberneticist, is it the most important thing you could be focusing on right now?” Ratchet added. “You really can’t think of anything else that might be a bit more useful?”

Alias leaned against Optimus, putting her arm around his waist and squeezing a little. When she spoke, he understood why she thought he’d need that preemptive comforting. “As you might have noticed, being human isn’t really an option for me anymore. That body can’t sustain my life anymore. We’re trying to find a way for me to live on as the Autobot Alias, but if we don’t, well. No matter what, my days as Anna Elias are done,” she said to Ishihara. Optimus fought not to scowl at the reminder of her condition. “So in addition to being nosy as hell, your question is also pretty much irrelevant.”

Skyfire looked amused as he watched the humans’ growing discomfort. “You haven’t been here for the last two weeks,” he told the NEST team. “This may seem sudden to you, but spend a few days around them and you’ll see that this is only very slightly surprising.”

“Well, yes, but–” she began, still frowning.

“Ishihara, enough,” Lennox said, holding up his hands before she could shove her foot any further in her mouth. He looked up at Optimus and Alias. “In her defense, I don’t think she meant to be rude. This just caught us really off-guard. I mean, if you’re both happy that’s all that counts, but we never knew that Autobots had those kinds of relationships, and with you being human… well, I think I may also be getting close to that fine line, so I’m going to shut up now.”

“Probably smart,” Wheeljack told him, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I think what they’re trying to say is that it’s none of your business,” Cade murmured to them. “So maybe you should forget about the  _how_  and  _why_  and just accept that it  _is_.”


	40. Everyone Knows It But You

“I’m more interested in getting a look at what’s on that computer. From what you’ve told me, I’m intrigued,” Perceptor said, nodding toward Alias’ hand, and she offered him the laptop with an expression that said she was glad of the subject change.

“Well, I’ll be able to show you soon enough, but for now, just charge the battery. Don’t open it up,” she said as he took it from her. “But that brings me to our next headache, which is figuring out how to get a retinal scan with my head stuck in the link machine. Anyone have any ideas?”

“That’s easy. Mirrors,” Epps said immediately. When they looked at him, he walked around the link machine and came back holding a multi-armed contraption that consisted of two mirrors connected by a thin plastic rod. “We’ve been checking your pupils with this. There’s no metal on it so it doesn’t mess with the machine. I don’t know which eye you need for the retinal scan, but if it’s the right one, that pupil is fully dilated so scanning it should be easy. Your left pupil is a pinpoint, though, so please say it’s the right one.”

Alias smiled. “Oh, something went  _right_ for once! It actually is my right eye,” she said, relieved.

“How long will it take to charge that?” Optimus asked as Perceptor carried the laptop over to his workstation.

“Approximately an hour,” he said as he plugged it in. “That’s actually much faster than usual, Prime. Any faster and we risk rupturing the battery,” he added when Optimus frowned.

“No, that’s good,” Alias said, taking Prime’s hand and looking up at him. “An hour is fine. I need you to help me take care of something before I get into the Energon data, and the sooner we do it, the better. By the time we finish, the computer should be ready for me to unlock it and start decrypting the files.”

She so rarely asked for his help that Optimus was a little surprised, but it was a good surprise. He hoped it meant that she was getting more comfortable admitting when she needed him. “What do you need?”

To his surprise, she actually hesitated as though worrying about his reaction. She fidgeted a little before finally saying, “Starscream. I need to see him.”

“Why the hell would you want to waste a single second on that worthless hunk of junk?” Ironhide exclaimed, and Optimus was glad he did because Alias had just rendered him absolutely speechless. When he’d wished she would ask him for what she needed more often, Starscream was the very last thing he’d expected her to bring up.

Alias didn’t so much as glance at Ironhide. All her attention was on Optimus. Her eyes were very wide but she seemed absolutely sure as she replied, “I want to let him go.”

“What?” Wheeljack cried. “ _Why?_  Alias, that bastard tried to kill you!”

Alias never looked away from Optimus as she answered the engineer. “Trust me, I’m fully aware of that, but he didn’t kill me–yes, he tried, but he didn’t, and while what he did to me was awful, it made all of this possible. Coming back here, seeing all of you again, especially becoming Alias and everything that’s made possible… it’s been a gift. I wouldn’t be here without him. Letting him go would wipe the slate clean.” She paused, then pressed his hand between both of hers and said very earnestly, “Please, Optimus. I can’t stand being in his debt. I can’t die owing him.”

He barely had to think about it. If anyone had earned the right to decide Starscream’s fate, it was her. “I told you once before that I set no limits on what you could do to him. If releasing him is what you feel you need to do, then we will release him,” he replied immediately, but he held up a hand when she started to speak. Just because he recognized her greater claim right now didn’t mean he necessarily agreed with what she wanted to do. “But know this, Anna. The next time I meet him in battle, I will not spare him again. I owe him something for what he did to you, too.”

She shook her head. “I’m not asking you to. After this, we’re even and he’s fair game,” she promised. Then she leaned her forehead against his chest and sighed. “Thank you.”

He put both arms around her and rested his chin atop her head. “Don’t thank me. I just gave you two thirds of a beat-up Decepticon. If you’re grateful for that, you really need to raise your standards,” Optimus told her, and he smiled when she laughed. He glanced at Wheeljack. “If we’re doing this, I want her t-cog reinstated before we go in there. She needs to have her battle-mode and weapons available.”

“She should have another dose of Energon, too,” Ratchet spoke up from beside the link table. “He pisses me off just by existing. I’m sure seeing him again is going to make her angry, too.”

Alias nodded, her face still hidden against Prime’s chest. “Probably a good idea. To be honest, knowing he’s here hasn’t been doing me any good lately. I’m sure you’ll see a change in my blood pressure once he’s gone,” she admitted, and Optimus frowned.

“Get the Energon ready and give us a moment,” he told Ratchet and pulled her out into the hall.

“We need to have a discussion about why you didn’t tell me that,” he murmured when they were out of earshot of the others. “I would’ve gotten him out of here days ago if I’d known having him here was upsetting you. What happened to  _no more secrets?_ ”

Alias stared at him, surprised. “He’s been giving you intel, Optimus! What am I supposed to do, put my issues ahead of the Autobots’ mission?” she protested, but when he braced his hands on his hips, clearly unsatisfied, she glanced away and spoke to his chest instead. “Look, it’s something I just need to get over, okay? Getting information about the Nemesis is important–”

“No,  _you’re_ important, and we have a base on the other side of the planet full of Autobots who are just as capable of questioning Starscream as we are,” Optimus interrupted her. She started to reply but he cupped her jaw, covering her lips with his thumb. “No, don’t talk, just listen. You’re my sparkmate, but I don’t think you fully understand what that means. It means that you and your issues, as you put it, are my number one priority. There’s nothing more important than you– _nothing._  I see now that I should have realized Starscream’s presence was bothering you, yes, but I’m not perfect. I’ve never done this before and I’m going to make mistakes. I need to know that you’ll tell me when I do so I can fix them.” His tone softened, but he didn’t let her go. “Knowing that my actions have hurt you is awful, Alias. It’s the last thing I ever want to do. Please don’t let me do it again.”

She finally nodded, but when he moved his hand, she closed her eyes instead of holding his gaze. “You’re right, Optimus. I didn’t tell you because I wanted it not to matter. I wanted to not care that he was here. You’re so strong and I’m so tired of being weak,” she whispered. “I thought if I pretended that I was strong, too, it would start being true.”

She truly thought she was  _weak?_ Oh, he couldn’t let that stand. “No,” he said flatly, and she finally opened her eyes again.

“No?” she echoed, confused.

“No,” he repeated. Optimus took her hand and led her back into the lab, and he didn’t stop walking until they were in font of the biggest monitor. “Teletraan, replay the security feed from Starscream’s arrival on base on the main screen,” he ordered. Alias looked up at him, surprised, but he took her shoulders and turned her toward the screen. “I think we need to refresh your memory.”

Epps and Lennox had been talking with Wheeljack, and Cade and Skyfire were discussing something about the link machine with Ratchet, but all of them looked up when the footage came on. “What’s this?” Lennox asked, frowning.

Wheeljack glanced over and laughed darkly when he recognized it. “Oh, just wait for it. You’re gonna love it. This is  _excellent_.”

Optimus stayed silent behind Alias as she watched the video footage of him and Ironhide draggin Starscream into the secure med bay where Ratchet waited. She didn’t make a sound as the video played, but the others kept up a running commentary.

“What are we waiting for?” Epps asked, but just then Alias charged in, shrieking in rage and sending Ironhide and Optimus flying in opposite directions when she tackled Starscream. Epps’ jaw dropped. “Good God!”

“Optimus, you tore his arm off!” Lennox said, shocked, but Optimus shook his head.

“More like she tore the rest of him off,” Optimus replied. “All I did was try to hold on.”

Then Epps stopped and looked from Alias to the screen and back again. “Wait–is that  _you_?”

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. “That’s her, all right,” Ratchet replied, grinning. “You’re watching our very own Alias stomping the scrap out of her first Decepticon.” He wiped an imaginary tear. “We’re all so proud.”

“Why does she look like that?” Epps asked, eyes still glued to the screen.

“Proto-form,” Cade explained. “This was only her second time linking into Alias.”

“Holy  _shit_ ,” Lennox gasped, glancing over at Alias and Prime as the Alias on-screen pounded Starscream’s face into the floor hard enough to strike sparks off the metal when he screamed for help. They wrestled their way across the repair bay–Starscream screeching in terror non-stop–and suddenly Lennox whooped with laughter. “Oh God, they weren’t kidding! You didn’t just bite him–you bit his finger off!”

“She’s completely unarmed here, you know,” Wheeljack told them, sounding every bit as proud as Ratchet. “No weapons systems, no battle-mode, not even a t-cog yet.  _And_  we had her at half-power.”

“All that and it still took three of us to get her off him,” Ironhide chimed in. “She was bound and determined to beat his ass, and ready to fight the whole world to get her shot.”

Ishihara’s eyebrows were sky-high–Alias had Starscream by the throat now, slamming his head against the floor with one hand while clawing at his face with the other. “I don’t think you could call _that_  unarmed,” she said faintly.

On the screen, Prime and Ironhide had managed to get hold of her arms and were trying to pull her away from Starscream, but she was fighting them just as fiercely as she’d fought Starscream. Alias kicked out and sent Optimus stumbling back. He tripped over Starscream’s severed arm and fell, losing his grip on Alias. She lunged back at the Decepticon the instant she was free, dragging Ironhide with her and clawing at Starscream’s face. “ _GET BACK HERE!”_ she screamed while he desperately tried to escape. _“I WANT YOUR EYES!”_

“Damn, Prime, she just straight-up knocked you on your ass. You just knocked Optimus Prime on his ass,” Epps said, gaping at the screen as Alias gouged deep wounds across Starscream’s face in an attempt to rip out his optics.

Lennox was equally stunned by what they were seeing. “Jesus, you really are trying to tear his eyes out. The  _hell_  did he do to you?”

“He took something from me,” she said softly, watching the footage with just as much fascination and surprise as the humans. “It seemed fair that I should take something from him.”

On-screen, Optimus grabbed her around the waist and lifted her completely off the ground to get her away from the captive. It was clear that he was only barely able to hold onto her–it was like trying to subdue a hurricane. Starscream was absolutely hysterical, frantically trying to escape while covering his eyes with his only remaining hand at the same time. Lennox glanced over at Alias and shook his head. “I thought Smokescreen and Crosshairs were exaggerating but  _damn,_  Alias. I am seriously afraid of you right now. Optimus, my friend, you are one brave Autobot–your wife is scary as hell _._ ”

“I believe you meant  _impressive,_ ” Optimus corrected him proudly.

“No, I definitely meant  _scary as hell,_ ” Lennox repeated. He looked at Alias with new respect in his eyes. “And here I thought  _my_  wife had a temper. I’m feeling really lucky not to be a greasy spot on your floor right now. That was one solid ass-kicking, and I mean  _damn._ ”

“If you think that was good, you should’ve seen her when she went at him again a little bit later,” Ironhide said, grinning at her like a proud papa. “I thought Starscream was going to glitch out and faint, she scared him so bad. It was fragging  _inspirational_.”

Teletraan ended the play-back when Skyfire and Prime finally managed to drag her out of the room, still fighting with all her might and screaming for Starscream’s eyes. The final image was of the absolute fear on Starscream’s face. Alias turned and looked up at Optimus, obviously stunned. “I didn’t remember it like that,” she whispered. “Is that–is that really how it happened?”

“That’s exactly how it went down,” Ironhide reassured her as Prime nodded. “You kicked his ass while he cried like a little bitch. Why do you think he’s so terrified of you?”

“You’re exaggerating now,” Alias said, and Ironhide shook his head emphatically.

“I don’t exaggerate, girl. Remember that he was given the choice between dealing with you or Prime and he picked Prime? Walk in that room right now and watch his face, then tell me he’s not terrified of you.”

Optimus held her gaze, letting her see how proud of her he was. “Now you tell me,” he said, hands on her shoulders, “which of those two was stronger? The one who faced her fears and fought even without weapons or training, or the coward who spent that whole time begging someone to come save him?”

Wheeljack looked at Optimus like he was crazy. “Were you watching the same thing the rest of us were watching? How is this even in doubt?”

“It isn’t,” Optimus replied, never looking away from Alias. “Not to anyone who’s been paying attention.”

Alias stared at him for a long moment before she finally closed her eyes and nodded. “Thank you, Optimus,” she murmured. “I think I needed to see that.”

“It’s not just that single moment, you know. Everything you’ve done since you’ve been here… you’re so much stronger than you give yourself credit for,” he told her quietly. “You’ve got more courage than the entire Decepticon army put together. Everyone knows it but you.”

She stepped forward and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to try harder. After all, who am I to question the great Optimus Prime?” she asked, and he put his arms around her and laughed softly.

“Yes. I’m always right. I’m going to make sure that’s permanently recorded somewhere so I can remind you of it on demand,” he replied haughtily, and she snorted. “But please don’t try harder. You’re making the rest of us look bad enough as it is.”

This time she laughed. “Oh, yeah, right,” she said as he hugged her. “I’m making  _you_ look bad. Uh-huh. Pull the other one.”

“Now I want to see the next time Ironhide just talked about,” Lennox said hopefully. “I love watching Starscream get beat. Can you play that one next?”

“It’s better than movie night,” Epps agreed, but Alias shook her head.

“I don’t want that in my mind before I see him now,” she said, and Optimus agreed. That first interrogation had been all about getting him to admit to his role in her capture, torture, and near-murder. It was the very last thing she needed to think about before she went back in there.

Perceptor came over to Prime and Alias holding two more doses of Energon. “Here,” he said, giving one to her, but he offered the other one to Optimus. He hesitated to take it but when Perceptor pushed it into his hand, he saw that unlike the quarter-dose he’d given Alias, this container was full. “You too, Prime. Ratchet’s orders.”

Optimus turned toward the medic but Ratchet was already speaking before he could say a word. “Don’t even start with me, Optimus,” he said, crossing his arms and looking very stern. “I heard Alias say that you didn’t charge at all last night and I also know how long it’s been since you’ve properly charged, period. You need this.”

“I’m fine, I don’t need–” Optimus began, but Ratchet scowled and cut him off.

“Yeah, you  _do_ need. This situation is just as stressful on you as it is on her. It’s going to wear you down and the Matrix can only do so much to mitigate that. Anyway, I just heard you say that I outrank you in medical matters,” he added with a smug smile. “You haven’t been fully charged once since she got here. That makes this a medical matter, so shut up and drink the damn Energon, Prime.”

“I like it when he’s yelling at you instead of me,” Alias said, and she tapped her cup against his before drinking her own dose down.

Optimus still hesitated. “And if we need to use the ground bridge?”

“Then someone else can skip their dose for a change,” Ratchet replied. “It doesn’t always have to be you.”

“Wait, you’ve been skipping your Energon?” Alias asked, planting a hand on her hip and glaring up at him. When Optimus didn’t answer her, she turned to the medic instead. “Ratchet, tell me he hasn’t been deliberately depriving himself.”

Ratchet raised an eyebrow. “Depends on what he does with that Energon in his hand,” he replied, and Optimus groaned, fully understanding the threat. Drinking this wouldn’t do anything about the last two doses he’d skipped, but Alias didn’t have to know about those.

“That was underhanded and beneath you,” he told Ratchet sternly, but he drank down the Energon and let Perceptor take the empty container from him.

“Also effective and you’re welcome,” Ratchet told him, disgustingly pleased with himself. Optimus glared at him but couldn’t argue–only now when the Energon hit his system, washing his fatigue away in a rush of energy, did he realize just how much exhaustion he’d been carrying.

The calming effect was welcome, too. He held Alias until he felt it take effect for her, too, then finally slid his hands down her arms and squeezed her hands. “And now if you and Ratchet are finished ganging up on me, let’s get Wheeljack to reconnect your cog so we can go get rid of that bastard. All right?”

Alias laughed at his disgruntled tone. “Poor Optimus, enduring having someone care about his health. However will you recover from this awful ordeal,” she teased, but she let him lead her over to where the engineer was waiting with his tools.


	41. If You Can't Say Anything Nice

Wheeljack made short work of reinstalling Alias’ cog, but instead of letting her leave when he was done, he stopped her with a light hand on her shoulder. “Wait. Give me your arm,” he said, and when she held both of them out, he took hold of the right one. “Now let’s have the sword,” he prompted. Lennox and Epps both jumped when her hand retracted and the long blade shot out.

“What are you doing to it?” she asked when he popped open a panel on her forearm.

He didn’t look up from what he was doing. “Prime? Show her yours.” Optimus lifted his arm and activated one of his own blades. It was nearly identical to hers except for the orange glow along the edge. “I’m doing that,” Wheeljack answered, pointing briefly. “You say you’re going to release Starscream? I say that I want your weapon fully functional first. He’s still got two limbs and four fingers left, you know, and that’s more than enough for him to cause trouble with.”

Optimus nodded his approval. “Good call, Wheeljack. If he’s stupid enough to start something, Alias should be fully able to finish it.”

“Again,” Ironhide added. She glanced at him and he grinned. “You’re up two for two on him, Alias. If he’s smart, he won’t try for round three.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not known for his brains and I actually hope he does. I never get to see her beat him down in person and the replay’s just not the same,” Wheeljack muttered. Alias grinned as Optimus retracted his sword but Wheeljack didn’t look up to see it. “You shouldn’t have any trouble learning to power it up once I connect it to your circulatory system. You’ve already shown that you have excellent Energon control. This isn’t much different than when you rerouted Energon away from your wounds earlier. Just send a surge of Energon into the blade and the sword’s design will take care of the rest.”

Optimus put his arm around her again. “Do you want a gun?”

Alias immediately shook her head. “God, no. I’ve never even held a gun in my life. All of you keep acting like I’m some kind of badass and blowing my own foot off might slightly dent that reputation,” she said dryly. Optimus laughed and she winked up at him. “Besides, I have you to be the big gun.”

“Yes, you do,” he agreed, pleased. “And you  _are_  a badass. When we walk into that room this time, you’re the boss. We’ll be right there and we’ll back you up in any way you want, but you’re in charge of this. The power is all in your hands.”

Epps glanced from them to Lennox and shook his head. “Is seeing that as strange to you as it is to me?” he whispered, and Lennox nodded, staring at Optimus and Alias, too.

“Looks real, though,” he murmured. “I think this may be the first time I’ve ever heard him laugh. Anyway, they act just like me and my wife.”

Epps gave him a dubious look. “You give your wife guns and swords?”

“What, you think I’d deploy for a year without teaching my pregnant wife how to defend herself first? She absolutely knows how to fight and handle a gun. None of that–” he nodded toward where Alias was being armed– “seems the slightest bit odd to me. Well, except that it’s him,” he added.

“Yeah, exactly. How the hell did that get started? That’s what I want to know. How did Optimus Prime even meet a civilian woman, first of all, and what happened in the last two weeks that made both of them say  _yeah, that’s the one for me, so let’s turn her into a robot_? I just don’t get that at all, man,” Epps said, watching the way Optimus held her so gently and teased her while Wheeljack worked on her sword, but Lennox patted his arm and shook his head.

“I don’t get it either, but I strongly advise you not to ask. I thought Wheeljack was going to squish Ishihara. Seriously, just accept that some things aren’t meant to be understood.”

“You’re talking about them like this was some kind of casual hook-up. It’s not,” Cade said, surprising both of them. They jumped at his angry tone, clearly having forgotten that he was there. Ishihara came over, looking understandably cautious. “Look, I hate gossip but if it’ll get all of you to stop looking at them like they’re a circus sideshow, I’ll answer your damn question. Optimus crashed really badly when he came to Earth and Anna found him and saved his life. That’s how they met. She lived on base with the Autobots for a year, working on refining Energon, before the Decepticons found out about her work and it got too dangerous for her to stay with them. Optimus sent her away rather than put her in danger, but that doesn’t mean either of them stopped caring. So do the math, guys. They’ve been building to this point for four years, not two weeks.”

Ishihara looked surprised at that. “Four years?” she repeated.

“That just makes it stranger that we’ve never heard of her,” Lennox said, shaking his head. “We make it our business to monitor anyone who knows anything about the Autobots. She didn’t show up on our radar at all until she proposed that Energon project a few months back. What was she doing for those years?”

“Lying low,” Cade replied. “But when she decided to start that Energon project, she didn’t just pop up on your radar. The Decepticons picked up her trail again, too. When your people lost her, it was because they found her. They captured her and tortured her for information for days.” He looked down at her still human body, so small in the enormous link machine. “I don’t know all of what they did to her–I don’t think even Optimus knows all of it–but I helped them treat her wounds when she arrived, and I can tell you that they weren’t playing. And I can also tell you that she didn’t break. They got nothing out of her.”

Epps whistled low. “That’s impressive. Especially for a civilian.”

Cade nodded firmly. “Yeah, it is. Starscream tried to kill her, but she survived. Bee and I found her where they left her for dead. We brought her back here, all beat to hell, covered in blood, and blind, and how do you think that made Optimus feel after he gave her up to keep her  _safe?_ ”

“Not good,” Lennox murmured, shaking his head.

But Cade still wasn’t done. “You guys talk about Alias like turning her into an Autobot was a fun little trick, but this wasn’t done on a whim. When they first tried it, no one knew if it was going to work or if it was going to kill her, but she went ahead with it anyway because that’s how much this means to them,” Cade said, crossing his arms. “You said you’re married, Major, so imagine standing in his shoes and watching your wife die. I’ve  _been_ in those shoes, and I can tell you that the last thing either one of them needs to deal with right now is people acting like this is some kind of joke. And you know what? No one cares if you approve, so how about you embrace what your mama taught you as a kid and if you can’t say something nice, at least keep your damn mouths shut.”

Lennox blew out a breath and nodded solemnly. “Thanks for setting us straight, Cade,” he said quietly. “We didn’t realize how deep this went. Attitudes will be adjusted.”

Wheeljack had finished with the modifications to her sword by the time Cade was done with his rant. She grinned over at the humans on the link table. “Hey, Cade! Check this out,” she said, brandishing her now-glowing sword. “That’s a  _thousand_  degrees. I could slice Starscream in half like a stick of butter. You jealous yet?”

“Yes, but that isn’t news. I’ve been jealous of Alias since the first time you linked in,” Cade replied, turning his back on the NEST team and smiling at her. “Optimus, when do I get one of my own, man?”

Optimus chuckled. “If you get one, Tessa’s going to want one, too,” he pointed out, and Cade groaned.

“Well, even then it might be worth it,” Cade said, tapping his chin. “Maybe I could trick her into accidentally stepping on that boyfriend of hers.”

Alias laughed, deactivating the sword. “You know, the best times I had as a teenager were with boys my dad  _despised._ Anyone you hate that much must be a fantastic boyfriend. I hope I get to meet him.”

“You will,” Optimus assured her, putting a hand on the small of her back again. “Now if you’re done reminiscing about past boyfriends, maybe we can go.”

Alias grinned at him. “Jealous?”

“Every minute of every day, remember?” he replied, and she laughed again and squeezed his hand at what was clearly some kind of inside joke. “Are you ready to take care of Starscream?”

Lennox exchanged a glance with Epps when Alias nodded. He was still more than a little stunned that Optimus was just going to let such an important asset go, but apparently it was actually going to happen. Alias nodded as Ironhide asked, “What are you going to do with him? We can’t just toss him out the front door.”

“Actually, I had an idea about that very thing,” Skyfire spoke up before Alias could reply. “Prime, if you wouldn’t mind using the ground-bridge one more time, I do believe I’ve found the perfect place to put him.” Optimus gestured toward Teletraan and Skyfire walked over and entered in some coordinates– _3°22'38.89"E 6°35'40.92"N._  Teletraan pulled it up on the large screen and zoomed in. “This is the Olusosun landfill in Nigeria, one of the largest and filthiest dumps on this planet,” the scientist said, looking over at Alias. “Thought you might like to return the favor.”

Optimus stared at the screen–mounds of rat-infested, rotting garbage, some of it on fire, some of it sodden in raw sewage, all of it nauseatingly filthy–and chuckled darkly. “Oh, Skyfire,” he said admiringly as Alias laughed, “I will most definitely authorize the ground-bridge for that.”

“Not that I don’t think it’s awesome to toss Starscream into that hellhole,” Epps murmured to Cade, “but I sense a story here and I’d love to know what it is.”

“When Starscream thought she was dead, he left her body in a dumpster,” Cade replied softly. “Bee found her and I dug her out. Trust me, this is poetic justice.”

Lennox whistled low. “He threw her away like trash. How did Prime not kill him just for that?” he whispered, shaking his head.

Optimus took Alias’ hand. “You ready for this?”

She shook out her arms and squared her shoulders, clearly bracing herself before she nodded. Optimus laced his fingers through hers and squeezed encouragingly, then looked around the room. “Ratchet, who do you absolutely need in the next half hour?”

Ratchet thought for a moment. “I’m staying here to monitor her human body’s health. Wheeljack goes wherever Alias goes to ensure her mechanical systems are stable,” he replied, and Wheeljack pumped a fist–he was clearly hoping to witness Alias beat up Starscream again.

“I’d like to see him out,” Skyfire said, and Ratchet thought for a moment before nodding.

“All right, but I want you back here when you’re done. Perceptor, you stay here. I need you to help me calibrate these human machines.”

“What about me?” Ironhide asked.

“Go,” Ratchet said, waving him away. “I know you want to see this.”

“You’re damn right I do,” the warrior agreed.

“All right, good,” Optimus said. “Ironhide, Skyfire, Wheeljack, you’re with Alias and me. Lennox, I can’t guarantee you’ll have an opportunity to ask him any questions–and he’s not going to know anything about those base raids in any case–but your people are welcome to observe.” He gave the humans a look that was half pride, half warning. “I want you to see what she’s capable of in person.”

Lennox nodded and inclined his head. “And I’d love to see it.”

“Don’t take all the humans from me,” Ratchet interrupted. “I can direct her care, but my hands are far too big to carry out treatments. Let me keep Epps.”

Ironhide came over and offered Lennox and Ishihara a hand. “We’ll show you the replay if it gets good,” the Autobot promised Epps, who looked a little disappointed as he watched the other two climb on. Then he met Cade’s eyes. “And we’re still trying to keep you from coming to their attention so you should stay here, too. Besides, I’m sure you’ll want to meet up with Tessa when she arrives and explain everything to her.”

Cade nodded and looked up at Alias. “I do wish I could see you dump him in the trash, though.”

She smiled. “I wish you could, too. I’m sure they’ll get it on video and I’ll make sure you’re the first to see it,” she promised.

When Skyfire, Wheeljack, and Ironhide–holding Lennox–had joined them by the door, Optimus nodded at Alias. “We’re ready when you are.”

“Then let’s get it over with,” Alias said, and led them out.

It didn’t take long to arrive at the secure bay. Alias stopped outside the door and stared at it for a moment, but finally she looked up at Optimus. “I’ll come in last again,” she told him, and he nodded without questioning it.

He glanced around at the others one more time. “Remember that she is in charge here,” he reminded them, his gaze lingering on Ishihara and Lennox especially. Lennox nodded, and Optimus added, “Also, he doesn’t know her name or anything else about her, and he especially doesn’t know about her and me. We intend to maintain his ignorance.”

“Didn’t need to be told that last part,” Lennox replied as Ishihara nodded her agreement. Nothing good could come of the Decepticons knowing that she and Optimus were married. “Don’t worry, Prime, Alias. We’re not going to be a liability in there.”


	42. Taking Out the Trash

Starscream had been trying to work his hand free for days, but these damn Autobots weren’t as incompetent as they looked. He hadn’t been able to loosen his bonds not one single centimeter, even when he’d redoubled his attempts after Crosshairs had sped out of there like his tailpipe was on fire. He’d hoped that the green bastard would stay gone. His mouth never stopped and words could not express how sick he was of hearing it.

But Crosshairs had come back a little while ago, grinning like a madman. Starscream would’ve given a lot to know exactly what had happened to make him run out like that, but apart from Crosshairs saying, “He finally said it,” and Sideswipe replying, “Vector Sigma, it’s about time,” they hadn’t discussed the incident at all.

And  _he finally said it_  could mean anything. Who said it? What was  _it_  anyway? Why were they so damn happy to hear it? Sideswipe had laughed out loud and looked delighted at this vague news, which also didn’t give Starscream any usable information other than whatever had happened was unlikely to be anything good for him. When Crosshairs had left, he’d been praying that it meant that Megatron had finally come for him, but if that was the case, Crosshairs probably wouldn’t have come back in at all, much less looking so damn happy.

Was Megatron  _ever_ going to come to rescue him? How much longer was he going to have to stay here, a helpless prisoner?

Not that things would necessarily get much better for him once he was back with the Decepticons. Starscream hadn’t been able to get any of the Autobots to give him a single scrap of information this whole time and he knew Megatron would punish him for that. He’d all but given up asking them questions because they never talked. Now he was afraid that the Autobots might have decided he was no longer useful to them. He wasn’t likely to forget Optimus Prime telling him that he was going to take his life the instant he stopped being useful and he hadn’t seen Prime or that insane female in days.

Only Ironhide came to see him now, and his questioning had become very nearly rote, the same questions in different order. Starscream could no longer even remember what all he’d said, much less how much of it was true and how much was false. The only thing he was certain of was that he’d given them far too much information and that he was going to pay for it when Megatron found out.

As though summoned by his thoughts, the door opened and Ironhide walked in. Starscream hid his burst of fear by going on the offensive. “You’ve got a parasite infestation on your shoulder,” he said, glaring at Lennox. He would never understand the Autobots’ fascination with humans. He would rather have his arm torn off again than give two of the disgusting fleshlings a ride on his shoulder like that. “You should see Ratchet and get that exterminated before it spreads.”

“Ahh, Screamer, my dear friend. Charming as always,” Ironhide said jovially.

“Don’t  _call_  me that,” Starscream growled.

Crosshairs grinned and hopped up on the other table. “What, Screamer? But you’ve lived up to it so well since you’ve been our guest. I think it fits you,  _Screamer_.”

Starscream ground his teeth. He hated,  _hated_ to be mocked. “I meant not to call me his friend. It’s insulting. I would never be friends with the likes of–”

His voice trailed away as Wheeljack and Optimus Prime entered behind Ironhide. Starscream started to truly be afraid then–Prime had heavily implied that the next time he entered this room, it would be to kill him. Wheeljack was well-known both for his mechanical experiments and his hatred of Decepticons. Seeing him and Prime together was just about the last thing Starscream wanted.

Ironhide glanced at them, then turned back to Starscream. “What’s the matter, Screamer? Scraplet got your tongue? You’ve said so often that you’re sick of me, so surely you don’t mind some new visitors. Come on, show us your manners, say hello to Prime and Wheeljack.”

Starscream opened his mouth to shoot off a scathing retort, but just then Skyfire ducked through the door. He was so large that his head very nearly brushed the ceiling when he straightened, and maybe it was the charge-deprivation, but his former ally and partner was the closest thing he’d seen to a friendly face since he’d been here and he latched onto that with desperate hope. Not only that, he thought Skyfire actually looked unhappy. Instead of exchanging barbs with Ironhide again, he spoke to the scientist who had once been his friend. “Skyfire,” Starscream whispered. “Have they come to kill me?”

Skyfire crossed his arms over his massive chest. “You have a lot of nerve, talking to me,” he rumbled.

That wasn’t any kind of answer. Starscream tried to reach out imploringly but he had no freedom of movement and all he could do was stretch out his fingers. “Please, Skyfire, for all the years we worked together, just tell me–” he began, but then one more Autobot entered, and he slumped against the table and moaned, “Oh no, oh no no no, not her!”

The crazy female walked past the Autobots, stopping a step in front of Ironhide and Optimus. She looked different–she’d clearly taken an alt-mode at some point during the last few days but he wasn’t entirely sure what it was. He didn’t see any wheels, but then again, she now had a coat like Crosshairs’ and his wheels weren’t visible in his robot form, either. Whatever it was, the changes only made her more beautiful, and that messed with his head nearly as much as anything else the Autobots had done to him. No one that ethereally lovely should be so sinister and forbidding.

And emphasizing that, she’d also clearly been in battle this time. That pristine proto-form was no more. Almost a third of her body was ripped and shredded with wounds that had to hurt like hell, yet she moved like she didn’t even feel them. She looked gorgeous and fierce and pissed off and dangerous, and of all the things he didn’t want to see heading his way, she topped the list.

She crossed her arms and stared at him for a long moment and Starscream tried, he really did, but he couldn’t keep from whimpering in fear. “Keep her away,” he whispered, his pride long gone by now. “Prime, Skyfire, anyone, please just keep her away from me. I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just don’t let her take my eyes.”

“Oh, don’t think so small. I’m not here for your  _eyes_ , Starscream,” she replied, but the emphasis she put on that word implied that she was here for something much worse.

He looked beseechingly at Skyfire. “Please–” he said, but the giant Autobot shook his head sharply.

“I’m not going to do a damn thing to stop her,” Skyfire told him grimly. “If it matters to you, I don’t think you deserve what’s she’s going to do to you. It makes me sick just to think of what’s about to happen. But I’m not going to stop her. I’m only here to bear witness.”

Wheeljack, Ironhide, and the humans laughed as though he’d said something delightfully funny and even Prime cracked a smile. Only the female showed no reaction at all to Skyfire’s words. Starscream stared from her to Skyfire and back again, so far beyond terror that he was very nearly numb. The female glanced at Crosshairs and Sideswipe. “Cut him down,” she ordered, and they didn’t even bother looking at Optimus for his approval before jumping to obey.

 _Who the hell_ is _this Autobot?_  he wondered for what felt like the millionth time. He’d thought she was Prime’s enforcer, but that clearly wasn’t it. They all deferred to her, even Optimus, but they all also still called him  _Prime_ so she hadn’t taken his place, either _._  The closest rank to Prime was Lord High Protector, which was Megatron’s official title, and Starscream was damn positive that Lord Megatron hadn’t been deposed. Unless there was something above them both… but no, there wasn’t, not since the Senate had been dissolved. The Prime and the Lord High Protector were the two equal powers that had once ruled Cybertron and now commanded the Autobots and Decepticons. But she was giving orders like there was no question they’d be followed, and Optimus wasn’t protesting at all.

His circular thoughts were cut short by the sudden release of his bonds. Starscream collapsed the instant the straps were removed–his single leg was nearly frozen up from lack of use and Energon depletion. He tried to push himself back upright but he was too weak. It was the first time he’d been able to move in days. After his third failed attempt, he just stayed on the floor, half-sitting and propping himself up with his remaining arm.

And then he realized that no one had moved the whole time he’d been struggling.

As soon as he went still, the female walked over and crouched down just out of his reach. Starscream pressed back against the base of the table but made himself look at her while she scrutinized him like he was a specimen under a microscope. He stared back at her, frozen with fear, but all she did was study him as though trying to decipher how he worked while the long seconds ticked by in silence.

“You know, I really expected you to show a little spirit once we let you go,” she finally said, shaking her head as though disappointed. “Is there really no fight left in you, Starscream? Don’t you want to take a swing at me? I won’t retaliate. Here, I won’t even look.” She closed her eyes and held out her arms. “You’ll never get a better chance. Take your best shot.”

Oh, no way in hell was he stupid enough to try to attack her right now. One glance over her shoulder showed Optimus, Ironhide, Skyfire, Crosshairs, Sideswipe, and Wheeljack all eagerly awaiting their chance to back her up–perhaps she wouldn’t retaliate if he struck her, but they most certainly would. He was short two limbs and hadn’t been allowed to charge for more than a few minutes at a time since his capture, and he was no longer even sure how many days ago that had been. The odds were completely against him. “Just do whatever you’re going to do,” he whispered, trying for bravado and knowing he was failing. “Just do it and get it over with.”

“Well, if you insist,” she said, opening her eyes. She lowered her arms and rested one on her knee–he saw that it was deeply gouged with painful-looking wounds and wondered what had happened. Those same wounds were scattered over the plating covering the right side of her jacket. Had she been wounded in a fight with the Decepticons? Did they know where he was–were they perhaps even now on their way to rescue him? “But before I dispose of you, I have something to tell you. Are you listening to me very carefully, Starscream?”

 _Dispose_ of him? The words sent terror through his spark but he nodded, wary. Exhausted, frightened, outnumbered, and wounded as he was, Starscream hadn’t survived all these years at Megatron’s side by ever giving up. “I’m listening,” he said, studying her face cautiously, looking for any hint of weakness he could exploit.

Her eyes abruptly narrowed. “First of all, don’t look at me. You don’t get to look at me. Your eyes offend me,” she growled, and Starscream immediately dropped his gaze down to her hand. He nodded, starting at her clenched fist not trusting himself to speak. He had no idea what her obsession with his eyes was about, but no way was he going to tempt her to try to tear them out again. Those gashes in his face were a constant reminder of how close she’d already come to succeeding.

Finally, her hand relaxed. “That’s better. Now, you are here right now because you are a failure,” she told him, her voice now conversational, nearly reassuring. Her contradictions left him completely clueless how to deal with her. “A miserable, weak, pitiful failure. But your complete uselessness puts me in a bit of an awkward position. You see, I’d really like to see you dead, but unfortunately, I owe you a debt. I–”

Exhausted or not, Starscream jumped on that. “What failure? What debt?” he interrupted, desperate to snatch hold of anything that could give him even a hint of leverage.

There was no warning at all. She grabbed his throat with one hand and slammed him hard against the table. There was the slick metallic sound of an unsheathed blade and the next instant, the tip of a sword was mere inches from his eye. “I didn’t ask if you  _understood!_ ” she shouted, and the sword’s tip began to glow red. The heat was nearly unbearable even though the blade didn’t touch him. “I asked if you were  _listening!_ ”

“Yes, yes, yes!” he screamed, squeezing his eyes closed and cringing back as far as he could. That red glow was visible even through his eyelids, searing heat stinging the wounds she’d dug down his face days ago. “I’m listening!”

She tightened her grip on his throat. “ _Shut up!_ You don’t speak unless I tell you to. Understand?”

And Starscream wasn’t stupid enough to answer. He nodded frantically, barely moving his head but making sure his surrender was clear.

She released his neck but he didn’t dare move–that sword hadn’t shifted an inch. After an eternal few seconds, the searing heat subsided and he dared to open his eyes again. She was back in her original position, crouched on his level, the sword gone and her arm propped on her knee as if she’d never even moved and that volatile temper of hers didn’t exist. He stared at her elbow, terrified to accidentally meet her gaze and set her off again. Vector Sigma, she was  _crazy._

She waited long enough that his eyes ached with the effort of not looking at her again. Finally she spoke again, her tone once more as calm and gentle as if nothing at all had happened, almost as if she were having a nice chat with a friend. He could get whiplash trying to keep up with her mood swings. “You don’t need to know the details. The only thing that concerns you is that I am going to repay that debt now. And once I do, we are even. I owe you nothing.” He stayed silent, looking fixedly at her shoulder now in an effort to read her face through his peripheral vision. She leaned forward and he flinched back. “Well?” she snapped. “Say it!”

Starscream’s voice froze with his confusion–hadn’t she just told him not to speak? She flexed her fist an instant before her hand retracted and that sword appeared again, not glowing this time, but terrifying enough even without it. “ _Say it,_ ” she snarled.

“We’re even!” Starscream choked out, having no idea whatsoever what this insane Autobot was talking about but willing to say anything just to get her the hell  _away_ from him. “You owe me nothing!”

“Good. Remember it,” she said, retracting the sword again and standing up. “Because the last thing is this, Starscream–the next time I see you, I won’t stop with just your eyes. I’ll take your life.” She glanced over her shoulder at Prime for a moment. Starscream stared at her profile. He was in shock, at a total loss for how to react to all of this, but not so much that he didn’t take note of the speculative expression on her face. Optimus raised an eyebrow in silent question but she didn’t say anything to him before turning back around.

Starscream made sure he was looking at her hands by the time she was facing him again. “Now that we have an understanding, Decepticon, it’s time for you to make a choice. I hear you’ve been asking about me–you’re quite the curious little ‘con, aren’t you? Well, it’s your lucky day.” She held out her battle-scarred hand as though offering him a gift. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know about me, or anything else for that matter.” Then she held out her uninjured hand. “Or I’ll let you go right now. Choose.”

Starscream gaped at the offer. The opportunity to gather so much information for Megatron was undoubtedly appealing, especially when contrasted with the brutal welcome he expected now, but he had a feeling that this wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed. Primus, it was so damn hard not to  _look at her_  and try to gauge her sincerity, but he didn’t dare. He looked at Prime instead but as always, his face gave away only what he wanted it to, and in this case, that was nothing at all.

In fact, the only person in the room who reacted to her offer was Crosshairs, who was grinning as though this was the best entertainment he’d had in days. It probably was, too, Starscream thought sourly, but now wasn’t the time to get distracted by how much he hated that smartass punk. He opened his mouth to answer but then stopped short. Moving slowly, watching her as carefully as he could without actually gazing at her face, he silently pointed at his mouth.

“Yes, yes, you can talk, you idiot,” she said impatiently. “You think I’m going to read your pitiful excuse for a mind?”

He didn’t react to the insult. Compared to the crap Crosshairs had been saying, that was nothing. “If I choose information,” he said carefully, “what happens afterward?”

She grinned and her tone turned very nearly flirtatious. “Afterward? Oh, that’s right, I forgot to tell you the best part.” She walked over and walked her fingertips over the top of his head. “After I answer every last little question you have, I let Optimus Prime kill you. He really,  _really_  wants to, don’t you, Prime?”

Optimus Prime crossed his arms over his chest and growled in anticipation. “Oh, he knows I do. Choose that one, Starscream. I dare you.”

She smiled at Optimus, then turned back to Starscream. “You’ll die, yes, but you’ll die with all your questions answered,” she said happily, her tone light and amused as though they weren’t discussing what would likely be a very painful death at Prime’s hands.

Starscream shuddered. Scary as she was in those rages, he thought he preferred that to this coy teasing. “And if I choose the other one?” he asked, feeling like he was pushing his luck by speaking again but unable to think of a better option. He had to know the fine print.

She propped her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. “You really are a special kind of stupid, aren’t you? I just said  _I’ll let you go right now._  They’re simple words of one syllable. Think hard and I’m pretty sure even you can figure it out.” Crosshairs cackled and the rest of them joined in, the entire room laughing at him except for her. “So what’s it going to be, hmm?”

“Give me a minute,” he stalled, desperately trying to come up with a plan to get the information and be released, too. It would be so much easier if he knew what she was talking about when she said she owed him! What the hell had he done for her? When had he failed and how could it have possibly helped her? How could he  _ever_  have encountered this Autobot and forgotten it?

And who the hell  _was_  she? It was almost worth risking his life just to know! The first time he’d seen her, she’d been an insane dervish of fists and teeth, a whirlwind of pain and rage who’d answered to no one but herself. The second time, she’d acted as Prime’s enforcer. But this time… this time,  _he_  was clearly acting as  _hers_. Just what the hell was going on with the Autobot power structure? These were questions that he needed answered, but those answers would do the Decepticons no good if he didn’t live long enough to deliver the information to Megatron.

Starscream cursed his sluggish thoughts for freezing up. He knew there had to be some kind of way that he could work this around to his favor if only he could  _think!_  “Wait, just wait.”

But she didn’t give him any time. “Choose now or I choose for you,” she said, starting to circle him. “I’m feeling chatty today, Starscream. Why, I don’t think I could keep a secret to save my life. Come on, you know you want to know where I came from. What am I doing here? Where do I fall in the Autobot hierarchy? Are there others like me? Or maybe we should start small. Would you like to know my name?” She was behind him now and she bent down close… too close. He couldn’t keep from shuddering as she listed all the things he’d just been thinking as though she really _could_  read his mind. “Imagine what you could figure out from that alone. Just ask, Starscream. Ask my name and I’ll tell you, and what a fine conversation we could have from there.”

Starscream closed his eyes, concentrating as hard as he could on not recoiling from her even though he was shaking now from head to toe. He shook his head silently.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re going to pass up this kind of blank check,” she purred in his ear. “You could conceivably drag this out for days. And you never know. Prime might even make your death quick and painless.”

Optimus grinned wolfishly and cracked his knuckles in anticipation. “Let me go!” Starscream blurted. He’d seen his death in those blue optics once before and it wasn’t anything he wanted to see again. “I choose freedom!”

The female sighed and shook her head. “So be it,” she said sadly, straightening and walking around in front of him again. She spread her hands apologetically. “Sorry, Optimus. I tried.”

“There’s always next time,” he replied with a shrug.

She laughed. “True,” she agreed, then looked over to his guards. “Get rid of him.”

“Activate the ground-bridge,” Optimus commanded, and the glowing blue portal opened in the center of the room. Crosshairs and Sideswipe came forward and jerked him roughly up off the floor.

“Wait, wait!” Starscream cried as they dragged him toward the portal. “What about my arm and leg and finger?”

The female gave him an ice-cold grin. “I’m keeping those as a souvenir of the wonderful time we’ve spent together. But you’re welcome to come see me any time you think you can take them back from me,” she said pleasantly, and he shuddered.

“But how am I supposed to get back to my base?” he whined–she’d said that she owed him, so maybe he could bargain that into some repairs as well as his release. “I can’t walk, and I can’t transform like this!”

No such luck, though. She put a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow at him. “Not my problem. You can always crawl, or rot where you land for all I care. Goodbye, Starscream.”

“Tell Megatron I’m coming for him,” Optimus growled as Crosshairs and Sideswipe swung him back. “Tell him I’m  _really_  looking forward to seeing him.”

They flung him into the swirling ground-bridge before he could reply.

Starscream passed through the blue swirling glow in a split second and yelped as he suddenly found himself about twenty feet up in the air and falling fast. He landed face-down in something that squished and stank and oozed into every open wound, and he wiped the gunk off his face with his one mangled hand. The stench was incredible. He managed to scoop the disgusting slime out of his eyes and finally looked around.

He immediately wished he hadn’t. If there was a hell on this planet, this was clearly it. Festering garbage surrounded him in stinking, unstable mountains for what seemed like miles. The carrion birds and wild dogs that had scattered when he’d fallen began to return, sensing, to his shame, that he was no threat. He wished he could disable his olfactory sensors so he wouldn’t have to smell this fetid miasma of dead animals, rotting food, and especially the putrid reek of human waste. And it was all over him! It would take him days,  _weeks_  in the cleaning pods to get it off!

A buzzing sound over his head made him look up. A tiny Autobot drone hovered just outside the still-open ground bridge, its lens pointing at him.  _They were watching him wallow in this filth!_ Enraged, Starscream scooped up a handful of sodden trash to fling at the drone but when he looked up to aim, a bird swooped past and evacuated its bowels right in his eye. He screeched with disgust and rage as the drone dodged his projectile easily. He could swear that he heard laughter through the open ground-bridge, and if his weapons systems weren’t offline, he would’ve unloaded every last missile and bomb he had into that pathway. Adding one final insult, the drone zoomed down for a leisurely close-up of him frantically wiping the bird shit out of his optics, staying infuriatingly just out of his reach, before rising up and darting back through the portal.

 _“Autobot bitch!”_  he screamed, but it was too late. The portal had already closed.

.

As soon as the ground-bridge was deactivated, Alias covered her face with both hands and let out a shuddering sigh. Optimus immediately went to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Are you all right?” he murmured softly enough that the laughter covered the words, very conscious of the others in the room. She’d been so impressive that he certainly didn’t want to undermine her, but if she was going to collapse again like she had after the last time they’d interrogated Starscream, he wanted to her out of there before it happened.

But Alias nodded, and more than that, she put her arms around him rather than folding in on herself like she had before. He hugged her, so proud of her right now. “I just really,  _really_  hate that bastard,” she said in a voice that only shook a little bit. “I hate being afraid of him. But most of all, I hate him for being such a weak coward and  _still_  scaring the hell out of me.”

Optimus caught the look that came over Lennox’s face when she said that. He blinked at her in absolute shock. “Alias,” he said, shaking his head, “if you were afraid of him, I swear I couldn’t tell. And I’ve been  _trained_ to read people in interrogations!”

Alias laughed against Prime’s chest. “It’s the metal face,” she said self-deprecatingly. “It’s hard to read.”

“No, it has nothing to do with that,” Lennox replied, and his serious tone made Alias raise her head and finally look at him. “My God, do you really not know how incredible you were just now? You _owned_ him from the second you stepped into this room until the moment they threw him out. You had him so off-balance, he’d have said or done anything you wanted. The Air Force trained me with the freaking FBI for six months on how to do that and I couldn’t have done half as well as you did. Where the hell did a  _scientist_  learn how to handle a captive like that?”

Alias sighed and leaned against Optimus again. “From them,” she whispered so quietly only Optimus could hear her. Louder, she said, “I don’t know, movies, I guess?”

“Yeah, no, I think it’s a lot more than that,” Lennox replied. “I don’t know why you don’t think you’re a badass. Whatever he did to scare you, you’ve taken that power back and more.”

Optimus spoke up before Lennox could go any further down that path. He didn’t want her dwelling on those memories. “You threw me a little bit there with that choice you offered him,” he said, smiling down at her to let her know he wasn’t angry about it. “It was brilliant. Where did that come from?”

Alias shrugged, but her tone wasn’t as shaky when she answered. “It was a spur-of-the-moment idea. It just seemed like the right thing to offer him to distract him. I didn’t want him thinking too deeply about what I might owe him for.” She looked up at him and squeezed his waist. “Thanks for going along with it.”

“Going along with it? I was hoping he’d choose the information. I’m heartbroken that he didn’t,” Optimus answered with perfect honesty, and Wheeljack laughed. “And I guarantee that from the second you gave him those choices, he wasn’t thinking about anything else.”

“See? That’s the kind of thing they taught me at Quantico–keeping them off-balance, making them think the way you want them to,” Lennox said, shaking his head admiringly. “You’re a natural at this. Optimus, you’ve got yourself a damn good interrogator there. I hope you know it.”

“I do know it,” Optimus replied, meaning it. “But I don’t know why everyone is acting so surprised. She is incredibly impressive at everything she does.”

“Not that you’re biased in your opinion,” Crosshairs teased, and Optimus raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not biased at all. I’m completely objective about the fact that Alias is the most amazing person in the universe,” Optimus said seriously, and she joined the rest of them in laughing.

“Oh, yeah, that sounds totally objective, all right,” Sideswipe agreed. Then he jumped up to sit on the table that still held Starscream’s limbs. “I can’t argue with him, though. Alias, you really are very good at that. You can be pretty damn scary when you want to be, you know that?”

Optimus grinned. “Told you you’re a badass.”

 


	43. Get a Room

“Well, I for one am glad as hell that Starscream’s gone. I was seriously sick of seeing his ugly face every day and not being able to shoot it,” Crosshairs announced. He jumped down from the table and stretched. “Now I’m really looking forward to getting a lock on the Nemesis and going to clean house. How’s that coming, Prime?”

Optimus started to answer, but Alias beat him to it. “While I did mean everything I said about wiping the slate clean between us, there was an ulterior motive for letting him go, too. You said that as soon as a Decepticon contacted the Nemesis on that radio frequency, you’d have them, right?” Optimus nodded. “Well, Starscream should be calling for a pick-up any time now. I hope you’re still monitoring.”

“Constantly,” Skyfire confirmed, looking impressed. “Nice job, Alias.”

She smiled at him, finally looking a little pleased by their praise, and Optimus was glad to see it. He really wanted her to see the strength the rest of them saw in her. She only paused a moment before meeting his gaze again. “Has it been an hour? My computer might be ready for me to start getting into it.”

“Not quite forty minutes,” Ironhide replied, and she looked disappointed.

“It might be enough,” she said, her eyebrows drawing together in a little frown. “Let’s go back and try.”

But Optimus shook his head. “There’s no need to rush. You said it needed an hour and that rushing it could damage it. I know you don’t want that. We can afford to wait another twenty minutes and make sure it’s truly ready for you.”

“Take a break, girl,” Ironhide replied, his gruff voice tinged with concern. “You’ve been going nonstop since this morning. Sit down, take a breath. You’ve earned it.”

Optimus could practically feel her getting ready to protest. He didn’t give her a chance. “Come on,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her with him toward the door. He glanced back at Ironhide. “Take over. We’ll meet you back there shortly,” he added, and Ironhide nodded.

“You got it, Prime,” Ironhide said, and Optimus heard him start giving orders to the Autobots as he led Alias out. He was so glad he could rely on his old friend to do what needed done so he could concentrate on Alias right now. “Skyfire, I want you to go back to the lab and help Ratchet in any way he needs. I’ll stay with you there. Crosshairs, pair up with Sideswipe and go on perimeter patrol. Your route will be along…”

The door closed behind them, cutting off Ironhide’s voice, and Optimus slowed his pace enough to put his arm around her waist again. “Where are we going?” Alias asked when he didn’t turn down the hall toward Wheeljack’s lab, instead continuing straight down the hall. “Optimus, the lab is back that way.”

“I know where the lab is. We’re not going there.”

Alias stopped, and it was either stop too or drag her along, so he halted and faced her. “Ironhide was right, Anna,” Optimus said to the question in her eyes. “It’s been one thing right after another since the moment you linked in this morning and you’ve earned a break. We’re going back to our quarters just until your computer is ready. You need to sit still for a few minutes.” When she didn’t look convinced, he cupped her cheek and added, “ _I_  need to sit still with you for a few minutes.”

Alias sighed then, closing her eyes. “Optimus, I’m afraid to stop,” she whispered. “If I’m working, if I’m moving, if I’m  _doing_  things, I don’t have to think about how terrified I am of dying.” The last word broke on the edge of a sob and she pressed a shaking hand to her mouth.

Optimus wanted to get her back to his room, but it was still a few halls away and suddenly that was far too long to wait. They were right beside the common room and he pulled her in there instead. The big room was deserted right now with all the Autobots on patrol or standing sentry anyway, so it was nearly as private as their quarters would have been. Crossing the room in a few strides, he sat down on the large couch in front of the dark television and tugged on her hand. “Come here,” he murmured, pulling her down beside him.

Alias only hesitated a moment before sinking down onto the couch next to him, but instead of sitting, she curled up beside him and wrapped her arms around his waist, hiding her face against his stomach. Optimus sighed and stroked the back of her helm, down her back, over the uninjured portions of her coat. “Oh, Optimus,” she whispered, the words almost inaudible. “I don’t want to think about dying but I can’t think of anything else. All I wanted was to be with you, really with you. Is that so much to ask?”

 _We’re together right now,_  Prime wanted to reply, but he knew that wasn’t enough for her because it wasn’t enough for him, either. He wanted a future with her, and not just the few decades of her short human lifespan. He wanted to spend the rest of  _his_  life with her, however many thousands of years that might be. He wanted to learn everything about her and still have her surprise him. He wanted to share with her, and laugh with her, and fight with her, and make up with her, to explore the universe with her at his side every step of the way and show her wonders she’d never dreamed of. “It could still happen,” he finally whispered, holding onto that hope desperately. “Don’t give up.”

Alias sighed harshly and pushed back enough that she could rest her head on his thigh and glare up at him. “Stop saying that. I’m  _not_ giving up, damn it. You should know better, Optimus. How many times have you ever seen me throw in the towel and walk away when things get tough?”

“Never,” he admitted, relaxing a little. Actually, she was just about the most stubborn person he knew, a trait he’d never found charming until he’d met her.

“You’re damn right,” she said firmly. “I’m not a quitter, and I’m especially never going to give up on you, so don’t say that to me again. If I didn’t walk away during the last three years when we were apart, what makes you think I’m going to do it now when we’re finally together?”

Optimus smiled in a combination of relief and bittersweet joy. “Come here,” he murmured, opening his arms, and she slid into his lap to fully embrace him. He rested his forehead against hers and hugged her tight. He touched her wounded arm with the utmost gentleness. “Are you still in much pain?”

She sighed. “I’d like to tell you no, but that would be a lie,” she finally answered. “These don’t hurt as much now, especially after the Energon, but honestly, my head is really bad. I can feel that tube rubbing against the edge of my skull. It’s really strange, feeling pain from something that’s attached to a body I’m not even in. I’m trying hard to focus here and not think about it.”

“Does that work?” he asked, and she shrugged again.

“You want the truth?”

“Always,” Optimus said. “Always the truth between us, even if you think I won’t like it.”

She closed her eyes. “Then no, it doesn’t help much. Distraction is better,” she admitted. “But I can’t complain. Pain means I’m alive to feel it, right?”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He hugged her closer and rested his palm on the back of her head, cooling it as he had before. She sighed and relaxed a little bit against him, making him glad that he could help even this little bit. Wanting to distract her from her discomfort, he said, “I love you, Anna. I haven’t told you often enough just how much I love you.”

She caressed the back of his neck with her fingertips, making him shiver. “I’ve always known,” she said, smiling. “But that doesn’t get you off the hook. Tell me anyway.”

He chuckled at her sass. She astonished him with her ability to make him laugh even in circumstances like these. “I’ve never met anyone like you,” he told her, keeping his cold hand on her head and resting his other one on her hip beneath her jacket. “You’re brilliant, and funny, and fearless, and you can touch me and make me forget everything but being close to you. Even before Alias, I wanted you to be my mate. In my spark, you’ve been my conjunx endura for a very long time.”

She pressed closer to him. “In my heart, I’ve been yours since about three days after I met you,” she admitted, and he couldn’t help but grin.

“Swept you off your feet that fast, huh?” he said, trying not to sound too smug but failing pretty miserably. He couldn’t help it, though. His infatuation with her had started almost as soon as she’d come running to the edge of his crater to see what had fallen from the sky so near her house and had shown no trace of fear to find a wrecked, sentient robot amid the flames instead of a meteorite. Instead of panicking, she’d leapt into action, saved his life, and helped hide him from the human authorities who had shown up to investigate. Her bravery and altruism had been completely unexpected, and she hadn’t stopped surprising him ever since.

She nodded, smiling back. “It’s that voice of yours,” she admitted, making it sound like some kind of secret. “I’m sure you already know this, but you’ve got a very sexy voice. I could happily listen to you read the phone book.”

Optimus laughed again and leaned closer to murmur right in her ear. “Adam Aaronson, 512-555-4883,” he purred, drawing out each syllable. “Abel Abrams, 210-555-2761.” She giggled, but she also shivered, and he purposefully let his lips brush her ear as he whispered, “I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love anything or anyone. You are more than my sparkmate, Anna. You  _are_  my spark.”

She let out a breathy sigh that made him want nothing more than to make her do it again, but instead, she pulled away a little bit. She met his gaze and traced his features with a fingertip, from the twin spikes of his helmet to the small indentation on his chin that anchored the base of his battle-mask and everything in between. When she had caressed every inch of his face, she finally leaned forward and rested her forehead against his again. “I’ve never believed in gods, but I’ve always thought something guided you to me that night you crashed,” she murmured. “It’s too much to be a coincidence. Of all the places you could’ve fallen, you landed less than fifty yards from my house. No one else within a hundred miles could’ve helped you, and you came right to my doorstep.”

“I know.” He’d been hit by two objects during his entry into the Earth’s atmosphere–the meteor strike that had stunned him and sent him tumbling off-course, and then a second object he hadn’t seen. Optimus had wondered more than once if that second projectile had been sent by Primus’ hand to ensure that he landed near help–near her. “That’s why I know that we’ll find a way. We’ve already beaten the odds a thousand times just by meeting. We can keep on beating them.”

She stroked his cheek. “You have such faith,” she said softly. “I envy you. All I have is fear.”

“I’ve got enough faith for us both,” Optimus replied, squeezing her tighter. “You can leave that part to me.”

She smiled, then suddenly laughed. “As strange as it feels to say this, we’re newlyweds. If all of this other stuff wasn’t happening, what would we be doing right now?”

Optimus didn’t have to think very hard about it. This had already been on his mind. “We would be taking our seclusion and deciding on our engravings,” he answered.

“Seclusion is like a honeymoon, I know that much, but what do you mean by engravings?”

“Humans wear wedding rings to denote their life-bonds. We engrave our sparkmate’s name on our armor as a sign of ours,” Optimus explained. He briefly gestured at himself in invitation before returning his cold hand to her head. “So where would you like me to wear yours?”

Alias looked up, surprised. “You’d let me pick?”

He nodded. “Of course. You are the one who is going to engrave it on me, after all.”

But instead of smiling, her face went solemn. She looked at him for a long moment before finally shaking her head. “I… I don’t think we should do that, Optimus.”

He frowned. Not all sparkmates chose to wear their mate’s name, true, but he had imagined putting hers on himself for years. Disappointment was the least of what he felt at her reaction. “Why not?” he asked, trying not to be hurt by the rejection of his offer but feeling hurt all the same.

Alias’ eyes were troubled. Her lips trembled but although she started to speak several times, it felt like a very long time before she actually replied. “Because it could be seen.”

Prime’s brows drew together. “Well, yes,” he said, not understanding this objection. Nothing she’d ever said or done had indicated that she would be embarrassed of him. Did she think he was ashamed of  _her?_  How could she not know how proud he was to have her as his sparkmate, how incredibly lucky he felt that she’d chosen him? But then he remembered how Prowl had reacted to the news that he’d finally named her his conjunx endura and wondered if that was part of her hesitance. “That’s the point of doing it. I would want it to be seen by everyone.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she said, looking worried now. “Optimus, you’re the Prime, and I’m… I’m not like you. I can scare Starscream but I can’t fight, not really. We both know that I couldn’t possibly defend myself against someone who knows what they’re doing even a little bit. I don’t want…” She stopped, closed her eyes, and after a moment, she finished in a whisper. “I don’t want to be your weakness. Megatron already tried to use me against you once, and that was without even knowing any of this. I won’t ever be used to hurt you. I couldn’t stand it.”

Optimus finally understood–she wasn’t rejecting him or their new bond. She was afraid that the Decepticons would use their love as a weapon to control him. And much as he wished she wasn’t right, he had to admit that she was. Megatron would be delighted to learn that he’d taken a sparkmate, especially one who wasn’t a warrior, and if he found out about this, capturing Alias to use her as leverage against Optimus would absolutely become the Decepticons’ number one goal. And he couldn’t even promise that he would be able to withstand it if they did capture her–he knew he wasn’t strong enough to watch her be hurt because he’d refused to give in to Megatron’s demands. He would do anything,  _anything_  to see her safe.

Even if they engraved her name somewhere inconspicuous, there was always the chance that it would be seen during battle. One glimpse was all it would take. Much as he wanted to shout to the entire world that he was hers, he would never put her in danger for it.

Trying to hide his disappointment, Optimus nodded. But just because they couldn’t do this now didn’t mean it would never happen. “After this crisis is done, we will begin your training,” he told her firmly. “Because one day I  _will_  wear your name on my skin, Alias, and I want it to be sooner rather than later.”

She stared at him for a moment before nodding, cautious and hopeful together. “So do I,” she said. “I want to wear your name, too, when we’ve made it safe. Where would you put it on me?”

Optimus smiled and leaned back, trying to study her with a dispassionate eye to make his decision, but oh, that was impossible. She was lying half across him, her knees turned toward the back of the couch so that she was curled around him with her coat draped behind her over his legs. He skimmed a palm over her knee and up the outside of her thigh, imagining his name there… then he trailed a fingertip over the uninjured panels of her jacket, making her shiver and tighten her hands on his shoulders, and he tried to picture his name there instead. But when his gaze rose and caught on the Autobot symbol on her shoulder, vivid red just like his own against her deep charcoal grey, he knew that this was the perfect place. “Right here,” he said, brushing his fingertip in a barely-there line from the symbol down her bicep.

She shivered again at the possessiveness in his voice. “That sounds perfect,” she agreed.

“Bright silver so it can be seen from a mile away,” he added, imagining it against her dark metal, “so no one could possibly miss that you’re mine.”

Alias laughed at that. “Subtle,” she teased.

Optimus grinned at her. “Look at me, Anna. What ever gave you the idea that I’m a fan of subtle?”

She laughed again. She wrapped her arms around him again and rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “I like imagining a future with you,” she whispered. “I hope we get it.”

For once, he didn’t offer his immediate reassurances _._  “So do I,” he sighed.  _Primus, please,_ he prayed silently, closing his eyes and holding her tight.  _If I have ever found favor with you, please_. “So do I, Anna.”

The door opened and Optimus looked around in time to see Bee and Smokescreen enter with Tessa. He dropped his head back against the couch and tried not to groan aloud, but he truly was getting tired of not having any time alone with Alias.

“Can’t get five minutes to ourselves, can we,” Alias whispered for his ears alone, and hearing her say exactly what he’d been thinking nearly made him laugh despite his frustration.

“It does seem to be the theme of the day. I could shoot them,” he murmured back, and she muffled a giggle against the side of his neck. Optimus shivered, momentarily distracted by the sensation.

But even muffled, the sound caught the attention of the new arrivals. “Hey, guys!” Tessa greeted them, hurrying over but stopping dead when she rounded the end of the couch and saw their position. “Oh! Um–are we interrupting?”

“Yes,” Optimus said emphatically, locking his arms around her just in case Alias tried to shift away.

Smokescreen and Bee came around but instantly looked away when they caught sight of the pair on the couch. “Ack, Optimus, no!” Smokescreen cried, turning his back. “This is a public area!”

Bumblebee contributed a sound byte as he dramatically covered his eyes. “ _Oh, God, get a room_.”

“We  _had_  a room,” Optimus shot back. “And we could have it back if you leave.”

Alias laughed again and to his delight, she didn’t move an inch. He was discovering that he really, truly liked the way it felt when she laughed against his neck like that. Unfortunately, she lifted her head to face them after that. “Good to see you again, Tessa, even if it’s not under ideal circumstances.”

“Good to see you too, Anna,” she replied, grinning. “Sorry to barge in on y’all. We didn’t realize you were in here.”

“Then you won’t mind leaving now that you do,” Optimus said.

Alias poked his side. “Don’t be rude,” she scolded, and he stared at her.

“How am I the rude one here?” he protested, but she just rolled her eyes at him in clear amusement. He sighed and gave up. “Fine,” he grumbled, looking over at Bee and Smokescreen. “I suppose you two want to give me a report. Go ahead because clearly there’s nothing else I’d rather do than hear it.” Tessa broke into giggles. Optimus glanced at her and she covered her mouth with both hands, trying to stop laughing without any success. “What?”

Her giggles only got worse the longer he stared at her. “I’m sorry, really,” Tessa finally said, not sounding sorry at all. “It’s just that last time I was here, you two were barely holding hands, and now you’re all cuddly and so cranky because we interrupted! It’s just adorable, that’s all.”

Smokescreen groaned and Bee shook his head emphatically. “Vector Sigma, don’t describe our Prime as cuddly and adorable,” Smokescreen said, disgusted.

“That’s just  _wrong_ ,” Bee agreed, and now Alias was laughing again, too.

“So have you kissed her yet?” Tessa persisted, not even trying to hide her giggles now.

“Kissing isn’t an Autobot thing,” Alias answered, ignoring the way the three Autobots groaned.

“Really? What do they do, then?” the young woman asked.

Alias opened her mouth to answer but Smokescreen clapped his hands over his auditory sensors and Bumblebee waved his hands frantically and broadcast, “ _TMI! TMI alert!_ ” before she could say a word, and both women cracked up laughing.

Optimus glared at all of them, especially when Alias shifted so that she was sitting beside him instead of lying across him. This was just getting worse and worse. “Do you two have a report for me or not?” he demanded, putting his arm around her waist and trapping her against his side just in case she was planning to try to move even further away.

“Oh, yeah, right,” Smokescreen said, finally turning around to face them again. “Well, not much of a report, actually. Just that we got Tessa without problems and that none of the scouts have seen any military activity heading this way.”

Cade came running in before Optimus could answer. “Tessa!”

“I’m fine, Dad, calm down,” Tessa said as Cade rushed over and hugged her. “Nothing even happened!”

“I’m just glad you’re here now. You’ll be safe here,” Cade said, not letting her go until she rather pointedly pushed at his shoulders.

“Safe from what? You know, no one even told me what’s going on except that there might be some kind of trouble. What happened?” she asked when her father finally stopped hugging her.

Optimus really didn’t want to go over this yet again. “Cade, I’m going to let you answer that question, but I’ll ask you to do it somewhere else.”

Cade nodded. Of everyone on the base, he most fully understood how tired Optimus was of hearing people say that Anna was dying. “Actually, Perceptor wanted me to ask Alias to come back in now anyway. He says her computer is ready for her,” he said, and Optimus could no longer hold back a groan.

Alias laughed at him again, and if anything could make him feel better, it was that–even if it was at his expense, he treasured her laughter, especially now. She patted his cheek. “Poor Optimus,” she murmured, and he sighed.

“Poor me,” he agreed, and endured another round of laughter. He stood and helped her up–she didn’t need the help, but he needed to keep hold of her. “Come on, let’s go.”


	44. A Briefing, Not a Negotiation

Alias abandoned him as soon as they reentered the lab, making a beeline for Wheeljack and Perceptor and the little computer on their workstation. Optimus walked over to Ratchet and Skyfire instead as the three of them started discussing the security measures she’d put on that laptop. “How is she?” Prime asked the medic quietly.

“Her vitals are much better. Whatever you were doing just now, it was helpful,” Ratchet replied. Optimus was pleased that their time alone had done Anna some good, even if it had been interrupted. “Her pulse and blood pressure came down significantly. But I was actually going to ask you the same question. How’s she holding up, Prime?”

“She says her head is still hurting her quite a bit and I’m sure it’s worse than what she’ll admit to,” Optimus told him. He wished she wouldn’t try to spare him. “She says that she can feel the tube they put in. Isn’t there anything you can do about the pain?”

Ratchet put his hands on his hips, thinking. “I really don’t dare give her any narcotics,” he finally replied.

Skyfire glanced down at the small cache of medications the trauma team had left. “There are other things in here, too, Ratchet,” he said, but the medic shook his head.

“The only things in there that aren’t sedating are anti-inflammatory medications, and any of those that we give her will increase her risk of bleeding. The last thing we want is to start her bleeding again. It’s just too risky, Prime,” Ratchet said. He looked over at her as she talked with Perceptor and Wheeljack. “She seems like she’s handling the pain pretty well so far. If she can continue to bear it, that would be the best thing.”

That wasn’t what Optimus had been hoping to hear. “There has to be something more that you can do,” he pressed, thinking of how she reacted to him putting his chilled hand on her head. “Can you at least put a cold pack on her head or something like that?”

Ratchet shrugged. “There’s no reason why not,” he agreed, and looked down at Epps. “You have some instant cold-packs somewhere in all that mess, yes?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t normally recommend icing someone’s brain,” Epps answered.

“This isn’t a normal situation. We aren’t worried about the cold causing tissue damage–the tissue is already beyond saving,” Ratchet said, and Epps nodded with a shrug. The medic looked back at Optimus. “Maybe that’ll do some good. Pain doesn’t help her vitals any, after all.”

“I don’t care about her vitals. She’s suffering, Ratchet. Do something about it,” Optimus said, his tone making it an order.

“No one wants that. I’ll do my best to find a solution, Prime,” Ratchet promised.

Epps cracked a cold-pack and shook it. “I don’t know how much you know about humans, Ratchet, but pain is exhausting. You might want to add that into your equations on the risks of sedating her,” he said as he carefully laid the cold pack over the top of her bandages. Optimus looked at Alias and saw her wince as it touched her, but she didn’t turn around to look. More than anything, that made him sure that she wasn’t telling him how bad it really was. “She’s been gutting it out for a while now–how long are you guys planning to keep her awake, anyway?”

“As long as we can,” Ratchet replied, frowning. “Or until we come up with a definitive solution.”

Alias and Perceptor came over to the table then. The smaller scientist held her computer. “We need a human,” Alias said. “Human hands, that is–what are you doing there, Epps?”

Epps jerked his chin toward Optimus as he wrapped bandages around the ice pack to hold it in place. “We’re under orders to make you feel better.”

Optimus shrugged when she looked up at him. “Cold was the only suggestion I had,” he said, a little embarrassed that he hadn’t come up with something more. “Hope it’s better than nothing.”

Alias came over and hugged him. “It is. Thank you,” she said, and he nodded, wishing he could do more.

Perceptor offered the computer to Epps. “You said you could get a retinal scan with your mirror contraption. We need you to do so now, please.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Epps said. He finished with the bandage and grabbed the connected mirrors before taking the computer from Perceptor. It took a little work and he almost dropped the computer twice before he managed to line everything up and actually get the scan to work. The computer beeped and the screen lit up. He breathed a sigh of relief and held it back out toward Perceptor. “There, all unlocked.”

“Yeah, not so much,” Alias replied. “I didn’t make it that easy. There’s a fingerprint scanner on the computer and we need to do that next.”

Epps carried the laptop around to the front of the link machine and stopped beside her. “Which finger on which hand?”

“None of them. I used my toe,” she said, and when he gave her a startled look, she grinned. “If you haven’t realized it yet, I didn’t want to make any of this something anyone could guess.”

He shook his head, chuckling as he moved down to the end of the stretcher. “You’ve been impressively devious about this whole thing. All right, which toe on which foot?”

“Right foot, second toe.”

Epps pulled off her shoe and sock and Optimus felt her go still beside him. “What is it?” he murmured. Alias shook her head dismissively but her face still looked odd. “Anna?”

Hearing that name seemed to shake her out of her momentary distraction. “It’s just… it’s going to sound stupid, but when I put those on this morning, I didn’t realize it was going to be the last time I ever put on a pair of socks,” she finally whispered. “I just truly realized that I’m never going back.”

Optimus pulled her fully into his arms and hugged her. He had no idea what to say to that. Holding her was the best he could do.

And it seemed to be the right thing. By the time the computer beeped its acceptance of the fingerprint–well, toeprint–Alias pulled back enough to give Optimus a smile that looked almost normal, but she didn’t step away. She looked back at Epps. “Now for the last step–I need you to enter the password. I’m going to warn you–it’s very long and you’re only going to get one chance to enter it correctly so type exactly what I say.”

Epps looked very nervous. “Are you sure you want  _me_  to do that? I’m much better with shooting than typing.”

“You’ll do fine,” she said reassuringly. “If you do mess up, it’s not going to explode or anything. I’ll still get a lot of information. I’ll just need to remember all the bits I sabotaged, that’s all.”

“Whoa, wait a second, you really did sabotage your team?” he said in shock, staring at her.

Lennox had climbed back onto the scaffolding around the table and looked just as surprised as Epps. “I thought you said you were framed!”

Alias shook her head. “I was, but that part of those accusations actually was true. I needed access to government resources to crack this problem but I never intended to give them the ability to make Energon without me.”

“Why?” Lennox asked.

Alias gave him an incredulous look. “Seriously? If the military held a choke-hold on the energy source the Autobots need to survive, what do you think they’d do with that? They’ve been pressuring Optimus for Autobot weapons tech since the day they met him and he’s been able to tell them no and make it stick because humanity has nothing he needs. They’ve got no leverage.” She lifted her chin, the very picture of obstinant determination. “No one’s ever getting that kind of leverage from me.”

Optimus sighed. This was the kind of thinking that had kept her from saving herself by telling the Decepticons what they wanted to hear. Much as he admired her strength, there were times he wished she was just a little less strong. “When am I going to convince you that you don’t need to protect me?”

She gave him a sweet, serene smile. “Never. Get used to it.”

Lennox shook his head at her as Optimus groaned. “I think you’re probably the only person on the planet who could look at freaking Optimus Prime and think  _gee, that guy needs a little help_ ,” he said, and Alias laughed.

“He’s not as tough as he thinks he is,” she teased, winking at Optimus.

“Alias, I’ve fought alongside him, and yes, he really is. I mean, look at him–the dude is  _made_ of guns!” Epps replied, and Optimus gave her an  _I told you so_  kind of look but she only shook her head.

“There are all different kinds of battles, Epps,” Alias said.

“I’ve managed to look out for myself and the Autobots for thousands of your lifetimes. I think I can continue to handle it,” Optimus told her. “You concentrate on taking care of yourself and let me worry about me.”

Alias just raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, yeah, sure thing, no problem. Just as soon as you promise to always think of yourself first and never worry about me or try to protect me ever again either. Deal?” When he hesitated, obviously wanting to protest but knowing that wasn’t a good idea, she grinned. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, big guy. I love you, and I protect what I love. I’ve got your back and you don’t get a vote, so stop arguing and get used to it.”

And Optimus really had no answer for that. He shook his head with a sigh. “I guess I’ll have to.”

Epps shook his head at them again and put the computer down beside her feet. “Optimus, man, you got your work cut out for you there. Why am I not surprised that your type is stubborn as hell?”

Optimus chuckled. “She’s not stubborn. Are you kidding? She’s a soft-spoken little mouse,” he replied, squeezing her waist, and Alias poked his side hard while he laughed.

Epps rolled his eyes. “All right, when you two are done flirting, maybe we could move on to the password.”

Ratchet snorted. “If you’re waiting for those two to stop flirting, you’ll be here a while.”

Alias grinned. “I’ve gotta have some fun, don’t I?” Then she closed her eyes and started to recite a long password of random letters, numbers, and symbols. It seemed to go on approximately forever. Epps typed each one carefully. Finally, the computer beeped twice and the screen went black. “Whoa, what did I do?” he said, holding up his hands. “Did I break it?”

“No. That means you did it right. We’ll be able to download it into Teletraan now and work with it on something our size. Thanks, Epps,” she reassured him, finally relaxing. She held out her hand for the computer and he handed it over gladly. After giving Optimus one final hug, she took it back to Perceptor’s workstation. Within minutes, data was scrolling over three screens and Perceptor looked like he was in heaven as Alias, clearly relieved, started explaining the readouts to him and Wheeljack.

About half an hour had passed when Teletraan spoke through the overhead. “Major Lennox, General Morshower is calling for you.”

Lennox looked up, startled. It was after midnight! “The General’s calling here? Now?” General Morshower rarely called him personally out of the blue. He had underlings who handled regular communications. For him to be calling now–and calling Metroplex specifically–could only mean one thing.

Epps shook his head, scowling. “Man, bet you whatever you want that Hartfield’s team got back to base and started stirring shit up. Now you get to put out the fire.”

The major groaned. He’d sent Andronov back with them to prevent exactly this! “Mixed metaphor or not, that’s no bet–I already know you’re right.”

 

Optimus frowned and looked over at Alias. She was deep in discussion with Wheeljack and Perceptor and didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them at all. “Lennox,” he began warningly, but Lennox held up his hands before he could continue.

“You don’t have to say a word, Optimus. I know what’s at stake here. I’m going to handle this, I promise. I’ll make it go away,” he promised, wondering how exactly he was going to accomplish that but knowing he had to find a way if he didn’t want the human/Autobot alliance to completely collapse. He also glanced over toward Alias when Prime nodded. “I’m going to assume you don’t want me to have this conversation here.”

“You assume correctly,” Optimus replied. He held out a hand.

Lennox jumped on without hesitation, but he was confused when Optimus started to walk out without saying a word to Alias. Apart from that half hour when the trauma team had been doing their assessment, Optimus hadn’t left her side once. “Not even going to tell her where you’re going?” he asked.

“No need. She’s lost in science world,” Optimus replied with a half-smile. He gave her an affectionate look before walking out the door, and Lennox was really going to have to get used to seeing that kind of expression on his face because wow, that still threw him. “She’s not going to surface again for a while. I’m going to make this conference very fast. She won’t even notice we’re gone, believe me.”

“Well, you know best,” he said, shrugging. It was probably best that Alias didn’t realize that she was about to be the subject of an intense discussion anyway. She might want to participate, and Lennox was learning that she could have an impressive temper. He wasn’t sure how much of it was due to the stimulant and how much was just her personality, but his commanding officer didn’t have much patience for people who let their emotions get the better of them.

But then again, her performance with Starscream also showed that she knew how to curb and focus that anger when she needed to. She’d been absolutely in control of herself every single instant she’d been in that room with the Decepticon and she’d used her rage and fear as a weapon against him. Lennox realized that he couldn’t really predict how she would react in a situation like this. He had only known her one day and all he was sure of was that she was tough as nails and that her loyalty to the Autobots was unshakeable.

And that Prime was completely devoted to her and willing to do just about anything for her. He was still trying to wrap his head around that one, but right now, it was the most important fact to keep in mind. If he didn’t succeed in calming this down, things could get very ugly, very fast.

“What are you going to tell the General?” Optimus asked as he carried him toward the main control room.

“I’m not entirely sure yet,” Lennox admitted. “It depends a lot on what he’s already been told. But he’s a reasonable man, Prime, and he knows that you and the Autobots aren’t torturers. I’ll make sure he understands that she’s here voluntarily.”

“I don’t care what story you tell him, true or not, but you will not tell him her identity, nor that she is my sparkmate,” Optimus said firmly. “That information does not go out over the airwaves, no matter how secure you think they may be. Soundwave monitors everything and he cracks your encryptions as fast as you create them.”

“I remember the rules you laid out, Optimus. Don’t worry. I won’t say anything that could compromise her safety here,” Lennox promised. Prime was fully in protective-mode and everything in his tone and body language promised that any attempts to cross him would be unwise, to say the least. He hesitated, trying to anticipate what he could possibly tell Morshower within those constraints, then added, “If it becomes necessary, can I tell him about it in person?”

“No,” Optimus said flatly. But then he stopped and sighed. “I would prefer that you do everything you can to prevent that from becoming necessary,” he revised his statement, his voice less hard now. “Our relationship is not a secret, but in this discussion, I fear it could cloud the issue.”

“Actually, I think it would clear up quite a few things,” Lennox disagreed. As Alias had just proved, the desire to protect a loved one was a universal human trait. This was something that Morshower would definitely understand.

Optimus just shook his head. “I would ask you to remember your own initial reaction to us, Lennox,” he said quietly. “You were very shocked and confused even though you know me well. To General Morshower, I am little more than a military asset. I think learning that a  _machine_  has developed this kind of attachment to a human would create far more problems than it solves.” Then he shrugged. “Besides, it isn’t relevant. Even if she was merely an ally like you instead of my sparkmate, we would do exactly as we have done to save her life. We would go to these lengths for any of our allies.”

Lennox raised his eyebrows. “Really? You’d build me an Autobot if I was wounded?”

“Yes,” Optimus replied without hesitation. “Our loyalty is not easily given, and once it is earned, we take it very seriously. We defend our friends like you defend your family.”

Lennox was stunned to hear that, but then he realized he really shouldn’t be. The Autobots had always treated him as an equal, and Optimus had personally risked his life for Lennox and his team more than once. That was a big part of why he and Epps had risked so much outside of NEST orders to help Prime when he was incapacitated. “I’ll do my best to make the General understand without going into the whole sparkmate thing, then,” he said as they entered the control room and Optimus nodded as he carried him to the enormous conference table.

“Good. Besides, I want him and everyone else to think of Alias simply as one of us, not a human in a Transformer body,” Optimus went on. “She is as much an Autobot as any of the rest of us.”

“Oh, she’s most definitely an Autobot,” Lennox agreed. From the moment he’d met her, there had been no doubt whatsoever about where her loyalties lay. “Not to mention that the technology that resulted in this transfer would get the CIA drooling. The possibility of linking a human mind directly into a computer… I can think of half a dozen espionage applications for that and I’m not even trying.”

Optimus put him down atop the table and took a seat to the side. “Exactly. This is not anything I am willing to share with your government. Approach this as a briefing, not a negotiation. The transfer tech stays here and Anna stays here, and neither of those are up for debate. Teletraan, adjust focus onto Lennox alone,” he directed the computer before the human could reply, then looked at Lennox again. “Go ahead whenever you’re ready.”

Lennox took a moment to brace himself, feeling like he was on a tightrope. If he got through this without pissing off Optimus or Morshower or both of them, it would be a miracle. “Put him on, Teletraan,” he said. General Morshower appeared on one of the monitors and Lennox saluted. “General, sir, what can I do for you?”

Morshower was sitting at his desk and frowning thunderously into his webcam. “You can explain to me why I’m getting reports of the Autobots running human experiments,” he said with his typical bluntness. “That trauma team you hijacked is raising seven kinds of hell, Major. They’re making accusations of kidnapping and torture and theft and God knows what all else to anyone who will listen, and it doesn’t help that we’re getting reports that the Autobots have gone on high alert, too. Dozens of angry giant robots tend to make everyone around here really damn nervous. What the hell is going on out there, Lennox?”

Lennox sighed. This was as bad as he’d thought it was going to be. “General, with all due respect to Major Hartfield, she got absolutely the wrong idea of what’s happening here. She couldn’t be more wrong if she tried,” he said, falling into a position of attention. “There’s been no kidnapping, no theft, and there’s absolutely been no torture.”

“How about you tell me what there  _has_  been, then?” the General replied, drumming his fingers impatiently on his desk. “Because I’m about ten minutes away from having to explain to the President why the Autobot base looks like an anthill that’s been kicked and I would like to have a really good answer for him.”

Lennox glanced over at Optimus and found him leaning back, arms crossed and face completely impassive–no help there.  _A briefing, not a negotiation._  “The Autobots are reacting to the threats Major Hartfield made, sir,” he replied, feeling no remorse at all for dropping the blame for this situation squarely on her. That was right where it belonged, after all. “She made some pretty nasty accusations right to Optimus Prime’s face and all but declared war on the Autobots on top of it. If you want an explanation for their elevated level of readiness, you can lay that one right in her lap.”

Morshower scowled. “That explains that part, but I notice you didn’t address her accusations,” he said. “Is there any truth to what she’s saying? Do they really have a woman hooked into a machine that’s destroying her mind? Are they running experiments to learn how to brainwash and control humans?”

“No. That is absolutely not what is going on here,” Lennox said firmly, aghast. Did that damn woman  _want_  a war? “General, the woman is a human scientist who was instrumental in creating this experimental device alongside the Autobots. She  _volunteered_  to test it on herself. Her brain injury was completely unrelated to that. In fact, from what I understand, if she hadn’t been using this thing when she had her stroke, she would already be dead. It saved her.”

The general still looked very suspicious. “This device–what does it do?”

Lennox shook his head. He didn’t have to fake his mystified look–he had no clue how something could take a human consciousness out of a body and put it into a machine. They might call it science, but it sure as hell looked like magic to him. “Something I don’t understand and couldn’t even begin to explain to you, sir. But I can tell you with absolute surety that it’s not harming her. I can’t possibly express to you how much the Autobots would never do anything to hurt her. She’s important to them, sir.”

Morshower leaned forward in his chair and put his hands flat on his desk. “Important, huh. Hartfield was very specific on the injuries she saw out there–widespread electrical burns and ripped-out fingernails. You and I both know there’s exactly one way people end up with wounds like that. Now I’m going to ask you this and I’m giving you a direct order to tell me the truth with no bullshit, Major. Was she tortured?”

Lennox didn’t dare look at Optimus this time. “Yes, she was. But it wasn’t by the Autobots,” he answered. “She’s been an Autobot ally for a very long time, General–so long that they consider her an honorary Autobot herself. That brought her to the attention of the Decepticons. They’re the ones who kidnapped and tortured her. The Autobots took her in after she escaped, and they’ve now granted her asylum.”

“Who is she?”

“I can’t tell you that, sir,” Lennox replied. Seeing the dark look that came over Morshower’s face at that, he went on before he could say anything else. “Sir, please. This woman came to their sovereign base of her own free will and asked for Autobot protection. They’ve granted it. We’ve got no standing to intervene, and if you want my considered assessment, we’ve got no reason to, either. Optimus Prime is not going to negotiate on this–Hartfield poisoned that well. If you push for her return, I can all but guarantee the end of the NEST alliance.”

The general’s frown deepened at that. “I trust your assessment, Major, but if the shit’s hit the fan that hard, we’ve gotta do something. No one wants to challenge Prime’s authority, but I’ve got my Commander In Chief about to crawl up my ass and I can’t challenge  _his_  authority, either. I’m gonna guess you’re not standing there alone. Can whoever’s there with you send for Prime?”

Optimus spoke for the first time. “I am already here, General.”

“Optimus Prime, good,” Morshower said, looking pleased for the first time. “I’m glad it’s you. We need to calm this situation down before it gets completely out of hand. The best way to do that would be for you to disconnect this machine, whatever the hell it is, and let us examine this woman in a hospital.”

“That is not possible,” Optimus replied, his voice unyielding as stone. “We will not put her health at risk, regardless of the consequences. As Major Lennox just told you, this point is not negotiable. If we disconnect the device, she will die.”

“What the hell kind of machine is this?” the General asked, looking horrified.

“The kind that is no business of your government,” Prime said flatly.

“General, I’ve spoken to her,” Lennox said before Morshower could reply to that. The last thing they needed was for this to become a pissing match between Prime and the General–neither of them knew how to back down. “I’m convinced that she’s here of her own free will and that she’s participating in this project by choice, not by force. She helped create the thing, sir. She doesn’t need rescuing.”

“I was told that she was completely nonresponsive,” Morshower said, surprised.

“No, she can speak,” Lennox said. “And she told all of this to Major Hartfield’s team, too–I was there and I witnessed it. Did the major not include that in her report?”

“Must’ve slipped her mind,” Morshower said dryly. He drummed his fingers on the desk again. “Prime, will you let an independent medical team come out there and evaluate her without turning off the machine? I think that would satisfy–”

“No,” Prime replied at once. “We allowed a human medical team to come out here and examine her in the machine once, General, and look what’s happened. Who’s to say that the next team won’t also misunderstand, then go back and report something even worse? No, no one else is coming out here.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me her name, either, are you.”

Prime’s eyes narrowed. “Absolutely not. She is in danger from multiple sources. I’ve promised her that she will be safe here. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize that.”

The general paused for a moment, thinking. “I’m pretty sure I know what the president’s going to ask me, so let me just cut the shit and ask you. If it came down to a choice between handing over one human or–”

“I will miss working with you, General,” Optimus replied without even letting Morshower finish his sentence.

He sat back, a bit stunned. “You’d really throw our entire alliance away over one person? Think about what you’re saying.”

“It requires no thought, General,” Optimus said firmly. “I hope you will make it clear to your president that it would be best for everyone that it not come to that point. I have no wish to terminate our treaty, but I will do so if you force me to. I have given my word as Prime that she may stay here under our protection for as long as she wishes. I won’t go back on that. Unless and until she leaves on her own, General,  _she stays here_.”

Morshower sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “You’re putting me in a helluva position, Prime. Give me something here.”

Optimus tapped his fingers on the table. “I will pull my Autobots back if you give me your personal assurance that there will be no attempt on your part to take our ally from here by force,” he said at last. “I think that will reassure your president. I want war no more than you do, but any attempts to force us to hand her over will be decisively answered.”

“No one is taking anyone anywhere by force. We back off, you back off–it’s a good first step, but it’s only a first step. We’re going to need to do more before too long,” Morshower replied. He thought for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose like he had a monster of a headache, and finally sighed. “I want it on the record that I believe you, Prime. I think you did the right thing by asking for our help when this emergency happened and then this stupid doctor misinterpreted everything and now we’re all in the shit. But there are others involved now who won’t take your word for it. You said that this woman can speak for herself. Will you at least let us speak to her and ask her some questions?”

Lennox looked hopefully at Optimus, but he didn’t seem very open to this suggestion. He took his time thinking about it. Finally he said, “I will ask her if she wants to talk to you, General. If she says no, I won’t force her.”

Morshower groaned. “Look, I get it, she’s under your protection, but make sure she understands what’s at stake,” he pressed, clearly not satisfied with that answer. “You went on a war footing today, Prime, and that means we did, too. And when we did, a lot of other nations followed suit. Telling you that things are tense doesn’t even begin to say it. There are a lot of people around here who remember Chicago for all the wrong reasons. Some of them have a helluva lot better access to the Oval Office than I do. The president and I both wanted your base on US territory because you’re one hell of a deterrent to anyone thinking of attacking us, but there are others who’d like to see you and the Decepticons all thrown straight into the sun. I’m trying not to give them an excuse to spread their stupidity around but you’ve gotta help me out here. I don’t want things to get out of hand when there’s something simple we can do to de-escalate things.”

Optimus made a sound that was very near a growl. “She is fighting for her life right now, General. Her condition could worsen at any moment and I won’t put any pressure on her. She’ll do it or she won’t.”

Morshower’s attention shifted back to Lennox. “Major, do whatever you can out there to obtain her cooperation,” he ordered, and Lennox had to bite back a groan. “Remember where your loyalties lie.”

His fists clenched at his sides. Of course Morshower had to say that in front of Optimus–talk about hanging him out to dry. Lennox knew that if Optimus thought there was any chance he would upset Alias, he and his team would be out on their asses before they could blink. “With all due respect, General, my loyalties are to both the United States and to the Autobots. I have made pledges to the Air Force and to NEST and I intend to honor them.”

The General’s eyes narrowed. “You better make sure you’re picking the right side here, son.”

“Sir, the way I see it, you and Optimus Prime are on the same side–you both want to make sure this woman is safe and appropriately cared for, and neither of you want a war over it. There’s no conflict of interests for me and my team here.”

Morshower stared hard at him for an eternal moment before finally nodding. “If you say so, Major,” he said, sitting back at last. “Prime, I know you said you wouldn’t put any pressure on her, and God knows I don’t want anything to put her health at risk, but I’ve just been told the President is on the line for me and I’m about to try my damndest to calm this all down. I hope you’ll help me do that. Morshower out.”


	45. If You Can't Control Your Woman

The monitor went black and Lennox relaxed from rigid attention with a huge surge of relief. “Well, that could’ve gone worse,” he said, running his hands through his hair.

“And it could’ve gone better, too,” Optimus replied. He still looked angry. “I won’t have you telling Alias that there’s going to be a war if she doesn’t talk to them, Lennox. She doesn’t need any additional stress right now.”

“No, no, I know that,” he said immediately. “But getting her to talk to them would be the best solution and you know it, Prime. Five minutes of conversation could completely discredit Hartfield and get the government assholes off your back.”

Optimus frowned. “And depending on what they ask, it could cause a whole new set of problems or increase her anxiety. We’re doing everything we possibly can to reduce her stress level and you’re asking me to put her in a situation that can do nothing but  _increase_ it. I don’t like this at all.” He thought for a moment, his frown deepening. Then he sat back and sighed. “Unfortunately, I can’t think of a better solution. I will ask her to agree to answer a few questions–a  _few_ , mind you. And if she agrees to do this at all, Morshower can listen, but I want her to speak only to you, period. I want someone I trust in charge of this.”

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” Lennox replied, relieved and also honored. After Prime’s reaction to the General’s request to interview her, he’d half expected Optimus to refuse to even ask her. “I won’t betray your trust, Prime. Our only concern is lowering tensions.”

Optimus nodded. He stood and offered Lennox his hand again. “Let’s go back. We’ve been gone longer than I intended. I’ll talk to her once they reach a stopping point with her research,” he promised. “I don’t want to interrupt that. That’s the main thing she’s been worried about since the minute we realized how serious this brain injury is. Even before she asked if there was a way to save her life, she asked about getting that damn computer and giving this data to Perceptor.”

Lennox sat down on his huge palm again. “I understand,” he said as Optimus carried him out of the room. “I know it’s keeping her going. Just don’t leave it too long, okay, Prime? I’ve never seen Morshower that stressed out. They must really be hot on his ass.”

Optimus sighed but didn’t say anything else until the reached the door to Wheeljack’s lab again. Then he stopped and rubbed his forehead. “I’m being overprotective, aren’t I?”

Lennox breathed a silent sigh of relief. This was the Prime he knew. “Optimus, my friend, yes. Yes, you are being outrageously overprotective,” he replied, finally relaxing enough to grin. “Now ask me what I’d do differently in your shoes.”

Optimus glanced over at him. “What would you do differently?”

“Pretty much not a damn thing. If someone hurt my wife and I had an army to mobilize around her, I would do exactly what you’ve done, except I probably would’ve shot that doctor and locked up the rest of her team and we’d already be at war,” Lennox said, and Prime finally smiled. “Come on, man, seriously. What’s the point of having power if you can’t use it to be insanely overprotective of the people you love?”

Prime chuckled softly. “Well, I’ve got to do it now. She won’t let me get away with it once she’s better. You might’ve noticed that she’s a bit… headstrong.”

Lennox snorted. “Yeah, that’s one word for it. She reminds me of a saying my wife likes to use–if you can’t control your woman, that means you’ve found a good one.”

Optimus laughed and shook his head. “I already knew that. I’ve never understood the appeal of meek and obedient. It’s boring.”

“Gotta love a challenge,” Lennox agreed. “Makes winning arguments that much sweeter, right?”

“If I ever win one, I’ll let you know,” Optimus replied, and Lennox laughed again as Prime finally opened the door and carried him back into the lab. He put the human down on Anna’s table again and looked at Ratchet and Skyfire. “Any change?”

The medic shook his head. “No, no change. We’d have called you otherwise.”

Optimus nodded and turned to Ironhide. “Morshower’s given his word that no one’s moving on us, so let’s pull back the wide patrols and come down off high alert. We’re making the humans nervous.”

Ironhide scoffed. “Well, we certainly wouldn’t want them to get nervous. I’ll recall the patrols but I’m leaving the sentries for now. We’re making a point–let’s make sure it’s well and truly made. If they want to make threats, they need to know what they’re playing with,” he said, and walked out without another word when Prime nodded his approval.

“That was fast. I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” Ratchet commented as he left.

Alias turned around for the first time. “You were gone?” she asked, and Lennox exchanged a grin with Optimus–yeah, he’d called that one, all right. “Where did you go?”

Prime’s expression didn’t change. “Had to talk to someone.” He nodded at the data still scrolling over her screens. “When you’re done with that, I’ll tell you about it.”

Alias frowned. “That sounds ominous,” she said, even though Lennox wasn’t sure what change in tone she’d picked up on–he’d thought Prime’s voice had sounded perfectly casual. When Optimus just shrugged, she passed her handheld to Perceptor and walked over. “Okay, let’s pretend I’m done with that and you can tell me now.”

He smiled and took her hand. “It’s less important than what you’re doing now. Don’t worry about it.”

Alias didn’t look reassured. “If it wasn’t important, you’d tell me instead of saying not to worry. You just scolded me for keeping secrets, Optimus. Don’t make me yell at you for it.”

He sighed and looked over at Lennox. “See? I never win,” he said, and Lennox grinned.

“I can see why. She’s a natural interrogator, all right. But let’s be honest about this, Optimus, you do give up pretty fast,” he pointed out.

“That’s because I’ve fought enough battles to know when it’s best to surrender with dignity.” Lennox snorted as Optimus met her gaze again. “This  _no more secrets_  thing is occasionally a real pain in the ass,” he told her, and Alias rolled her eyes.

“Don’t blame me, it was your idea. Quit stalling, big guy. What’s going on?”

Optimus pressed her hand between both of his and looked into her eyes. “If you trust me, then believe me when I tell you that this can wait. I’m not keeping secrets–I  _will_ tell you, but with the situation we’re in right now, there are some things that need your attention and some things that are unnecessary distractions. This falls into the second category.”

“You’re getting perilously close to  _don’t worry your pretty little head_  territory,” Alias warned.

“No, I’m not. I’m reminding you that the other half of that  _no more secrets_ agreement was  _we’re a team_ ,” Optimus replied. “What you’re doing really is more important, so let me handle this. All right?”

Alias looked at him for a long time. He didn’t flinch away or try to avoid her gaze. Finally she sighed. “Throwing in that  _if you trust me_ bit was really unfair,” she muttered, giving him a sour look. “Of course I trust you. You better know that by now.”

“I know it,” he assured her gently. “So believe me when I tell you that this is something you are not required to handle. This is Prime business. Dealing with this kind of thing is what I’m for,” he said, and she nodded at last.

“You’re  _for_ a hell of a lot more than that, but all right, Optimus,” Alias said, backing down. “Just this once, all right. But don’t think you’re going to pull that  _it’s Prime business_ thing on me very often.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Optimus promised. She raised an eyebrow and he corrected himself, “All right, I will dream of it, but I know I won’t get away with it, so I won’t try. Better?”

“Better,” Alias said, smiling now. She squeezed Prime’s hand and went back to her data.

Optimus watched her walk away while Lennox tried not to laugh–God, Alias really did remind him of his wife. It took a strong person to be a soldier’s spouse. Sarah didn’t let him get away with a damn thing and he could tell Optimus was in the same boat. “Man, she’s got your number so bad,” he said, shaking his head.

Skyfire snickered from beside Anna’s table. “Oh, you have no idea.”

“You may not realize that his first reaction to letting Anna link into Alias was a final and definite  _no_ ,” Ratchet said, giving his old friend a distinctly amused look. “And yet there she stands, victorious.”

“I’m right here, you know. I can hear you,” Optimus complained, and that only made them laugh. “Besides, I thought I won this one.”

“I’d call that more of a temporary armed truce,” Lennox disagreed.

Skyfire grinned. “Yeah, I’m with Lennox. Anyway, we all know she’s going to get her way in the end.”

“It’s just disturbing to watch,” Ratchet agreed. “I’m not sure who I’m supposed to call  _Prime_ anymore, but I definitely know who’s in charge.”

They all laughed and Optimus sighed. “Any chance I can order you not to tease me about this?”

“No,” Ratchet, Lennox, and Skyfire said together.

Lennox laughed again. The more he saw Optimus and Alias interact, the less strange it seemed. It was already becoming difficult to imagine him without her, and watching her deal with Starscream had certainly proved that she could hold her own beside the Autobot leader. “They’ve got a point, Optimus. You two are cute as hell together–own it and take the teasing like a man. Or, well, like a thirty-foot tall death bot.”

“Yeah, you want me to take it like a man. The death bot would find an unpleasant way to shut all of you up,” Optimus growled, then looked around while they laughed at him again, completely unintimidated by the threat. “Where did Epps go?”

“I sent him out to get some sleep when you came back in. He’s got the most medical training of any of you and I want him fresh for when I really need him later,” Ratchet replied, going serious again too. “In fact, Lennox, you’ve also been here since this started twelve hours ago, so as soon as Cade and Tessa come in to relieve you, I want you to get some rest too. We don’t know how long this is going to last and none of us can afford to get overtired. We’re all going to start taking shifts–four hours on, four hours off, Autobots too. Exhaustion helps no one, especially not Alias.”

Optimus crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s a good plan, just so long as you realize that it doesn’t apply to me. Don’t even try to send me out of here for four hours.”

Ratchet shook his head. “Please. I’m not that stupid, Prime. Much as I’d love to see you get some rest, I know better than to even ask. Anyway, you’re her moral support and she needs you here. This applies only to those directly involved in her care.”

“Speaking of  _involved in her care_ , Ratchet’s exempted himself, too,” Skyfire spoke up. He gave the medic an accusatory look before glancing back at Optimus. “Seems like our chief medical officer shouldn’t get exhausted either, don’t you think, Prime?”

Ratchet crossed his arms in a stubborn pose that was a mirror of Prime’s. “You don’t order me and neither does he–not in medical matters. Until this is over, however it ends, I’ll be right here. That’s my privilege, Skyfire. That is, unless you want to be the one in charge if a new emergency crops up while I’m napping.”

“I want Ratchet here,” Optimus said, cutting the disagreement short. He gave the medic a firm look. “And I trust him to be smart enough to get some rest if he starts getting tired enough to make mistakes. Right?”

Ratchet started to answer, but Lennox wasn’t listening. He was watching the scientists gathered around the data screens. “Hey, guys?” he interrupted, and all of them looked down at him. “Was she that unsteady on her feet when she was talking to us a minute ago?”


End file.
